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."
I bit my tongue at the next thought. They were fortunate to own Ducius, their nicknamed weather drone that had been in their family's possession for most of my friend's life. However, programming the robot's flight pattern was begging to leave a digital trail for their parents to find afterward.
"We already told Mother we were staying at your place," Adrius added quickly.
Before I could argue otherwise, the bell rang for us to return to our duties, the sun still baking us alive while we dig channels for water, to 'build character' according to our school's mission during this season. If I had a human body, the summer heat combined with the idiocy of my friend would have surely killed me.
I sighed.
"What time are we leaving?"
I was not about to let the kids do it alone. If I could keep them from making a dumb decision while looking for whatever landed - if anything did - then I could stave off the worst of the consequences that would befall them.
OSMOS V
February 25, 20:45 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Mother slapped a piece of parchment onto the table, the sound echoing throughout the small kitchen. Her exasperated face stretched with clear exhaustion and discomfort. I pushed away a forgotten bowl of stew to study whatever was clearly bothering her, partly worried that she'd already somehow learned of the plan with Adrius later that evening.
Several blocks of symbolic text stretched across the page, its edges furled and frayed. A burned space on one corner burned away part of the message, and I could not help but frown. The message was in a foreign language, and not one I'd researched previously from any of the cultures of Osmos V.
No - this message came from the Reach.
"I cannot make heads or tails of this," Mother clarified at my look of confusion. "Every time I think I have something, it flows further away from me."
"Does Father have you working on this?"
She shook her head after a long hesitation. "No. It's nothin-"
"If you're about to tell me that it's nothing for me to worry about, save your breath."
Mother glanced away for a long moment, and a pang of guilt arose in my throat. Ever since I exposed my father's work, things have not been the same as they'd always been at home. Opening that particular Pandora's Box had brought with it other issues that, well, years of therapy might not fix. They were not my real parents anyway, so surely there couldn't be any real long term issues.
Surely.
She finally met my gaze. "I found it at work, on one of my supervisor's desks. The only word I think I recognize is gadopen." She pointed to one particular section of the parchment and roughly circled its twisting shapes. "Gadopen is a medicine for treating heart disease, so I thought that maybe the Reach is in contact with the hospital or a doctor there."
I remembered the original message from Xandros - every week, at least one of my nightmares involved a twisted version of that message followed by a complete unraveling of society as the Reach brought their power to bear upon the planet. To say that I had been able to get a single iota of regular sleep in months was an understatement of the issues at hand. All that, and the invasion had not even happened.
Yet.
In that message, he promised many things like technology, medicine, and other benefits. If they truly had no ulterior motives, then uplifting the Osmosian way of life in many fields would be useful to everyone. I was not convinced they were not plotting something, and neither was Father. He'd been gone for months on a trip to the capital with the others, and I could not wait to hear whatever his next message might be for us. Perhaps he'd reveal the one key piece of information that unraveled all of it, once and for all.
"Maybe they're just finally owning up to their promises," I offered. "A few medical breakthroughs would change things."
Mother nodded. "I considered that, too, but trusting any of the patients with anything they make? Is it worth it?"
I shrugged. "If I found out tomorrow that I have cancer, and they offered a cure that I knew to work? I'd take it."
She pursed her lips and said nothing.
That was truly how I felt. That was the reasonable answer. It was okay to look a gift horse in the mouth sometimes, if it meant that a lifetime of pain, anguish, and weakness would go away. My aunt in my first life died of leukemia when I was seventeen, and if the Reach offered her a solution? I'd want her to take it, even if there were other side effects, because the alternative was to lose her only two days after her diagnosis.
The clock struck the turn of hour, and I cleared my throat. "I'm gonna go to bed early. I've got a test tomorrow, and I want all my energy for it."
It was a lie, but a reasonable one, and Mother barely acknowledged the point, instead wrapping up the parchment and beginning the process of cleaning the kitchen. I'd offer to help her, but I couldn't get my brain off of the Reach, Father, and whatever it was that I was about to discover.
OSMOS V
February 25, 23:08 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The night air was cool within the Magnus Desertus, something that made living within its borders largely possible. Without it, keeping homes cool would be exorbitantly expensive for families like mine, and I'd spent much of my second life with the window wide open at night to let cool air circulate. The winter months made even that impossible. As cold as it was right then, I was grateful to have bundled more intentionally.
Adrius and Felixus led the way through the sandy dunes and past craggy rocks, far too excited to care as much about the temperature as I did. The elder brother was the spitting image of the younger - dark hair, tanned skin, green eyes, and an abundance of freckles across every exposed piece of skin. They were both adorably wearing matching scarves around their necks for warmth, and I was convinced that I would heckle them for it at some point during the night.
Ducius, the cylinder-shaped drone with red and white plating, guided us through indistinct desert walkways. It hovered thirty feet above us and bathed us and our immediate surroundings in faint red light, casting everything in an ominous glow that spoke volumes over how stupid this entire thing was. Whatever path they'd programmed into it felt erratic and mostly pointless, and we'd had to deviate once already to avoid a nighttime cliff-drop to injury at best, to death at worst.
"We're farther in than I thought we would be," I finally say, stepping through a small wall of desert brush that were mostly unprickly. "How close is it?"
Felixus huffed and rubbed at his sweaty face, pudgier than his brother. He reminded me of how unhealthy I had been in my early high school years. "It shouldn't be too much farth-"
"Can you check?"
Adrius answered for his brother with a high-pitched whistle, and the drone floated down to eye-level. With a whirring noise and a beep, Ducius opened a plate on its head to reveal a computer screen, glowing in white light. Etched across it in tight, crimson lines was a map of the surrounding area, showing basic terrain with a distinct lack of detail. A dotted blue line showed we were close to the destination, and a small panel near the top revealed the mathematical calculations to predict the probable place of landing.
"Felixus, you're surprisingly good at this."
The brother waved it off. "It's not a big deal. There's very little to do at home except play with Ducius."
"And ignore me," Adrius muttered.
If we pulled this off, then they were bound to get into trouble if they didn't cover their tracks. "Do you have a plan to wipe its memory of the map you made?"
The brothers stopped and stared at each other for a long two seconds. Finally, Felixus wiped at the sweat on his brow. "Oh, uh, yeah. I can do that. Why though?"
"He's trying to avoid getting us into trouble," Adrius finished for me, sheepishly looking in my direction. "That's smart."
It took the elder brother a moment to realize the implications. "Oh."
"Yeah. Just looking out for you. How much longer, then?"
The brothers crowded around the drone's head, their faces alit with red light. "It should be just ahead." The elder brother pointed to an area ahead of us, a wide, three story wall of rock blocking our view. "Behind that ridge."
The slow climb into that position took several minutes until we could finally see… something. The excitement upon getting to see whatever it is almost drowned the thoughts of how exhausted I would be in the morning. This was not easy for a lanky little kid without a regular exercise routine.
Even without the ring of red light from Ducius, whatever had struck the ground here was putting off its own subtle glow in a few places, little pinpricks of light that strike into the darkness around it. Felixus excitedly begins to slide down the embankment, and not at all smoothly as gravel-like stone and sand drift ahead of his path and nearly force him to tumble several yards. Adrius makes to follow him in the same path, but I yank his shoulder back, much harder than I meant to.
"Hey! Watch it!"
"Careful, kid," I warn, hoping that he would ease into it. Felixus had the advantage of several inches of height and a more solid build, even if he were pudgier than either of us. "No collecting any money or trophies if you break your neck down there."
Adrius acknowledges the point and more carefully follows after his brother and their drone, the circle of light inching closer to reveal the object that struck the ground and carved a solid forty-yard chunk in sand and stone. I was expecting Felixus to find a meteorite or some other basic space debris, or perhaps to find nothing at all, but nothing could have prepared me for this.
"Whoa! It's a ship!"
Good god. As if living here couldn't be any more difficult.
A metallic object coated in sleek black metal, a clearly damaged propulsion system on one side and jutting from the ground. Cracks ran along its surface in a myriad of paths, power still running somewhere within its structure. A clear line indicated an opening, and Adrius hurriedly rushed to run his palm along the crack.
"Not to be the bearer of bad news," I said with a harsh sigh, staying as far back as possible and angling to scramble up and away from the thing, "but there's a strong chance we're getting enough radiation to give us cancer in a few months."
Felixus hissed. "Ducius would notice it."
What?
"Your weather drone has a rad counter?"
They both ignored me and continued to poke the small alien ship. A few basic escape pod designs from different stuff I'd seen in my first life came to mind, but this was a bit bigger than that. There could be two or three aliens in that thing, waiting to eat us. Or probe us. Or both, in whichever order suited them.
I shivered.
Whichever it was, the ship didn't respond to the brothers' poking, and I couldn't help but try to be the voice of reason again. "Have Ducius take a picture or a video. We gotta get out of here - it's too heavy to lift. This was really cool, but we need to get go-"
Felixus slammed his hand on the rim of the ship, and it - unfortunately - responded. The elder of us shifted back several feet as a panel on the roof opened in a swirl of hazy steam.
"Run!" I shouted, pushing against gravel and sand to climb the incline as fast as possible. I heard Adrius following, but his brother had yet to move from his position, locked in place from terror, from awe, or from stupidity. I sighed and flipped around without sliding down, maintaining my solid ground for a second. "Felixus! Don't stand there! Get a move on!"
The boy only made it a half-step backwards before the steam cleared enough to see what lie within. Green light faintly emerged from the interior of the ship, growing brighter the more of the mist dissipated. Raised upright on its hind legs was a huge four-legged creature, its matted fur a muted orange color. A long tongue swiped from its toothy mouth, an odd color in the midst of the weather drone's and the ship's glow. It twisted its movement in the elder boy's direction, sniffing at the air from its eyeless face. Clawed feet gripped at the metal of the ship with enough force to dent it, and… and….
and…
I moved without thinking.
A rock the size of my palm struck the ground nearest to the creature's left flank, missing widely. Yet, it gathered its attention.
Adrius continued climbing until he was a solid three feet behind me, shouting down at his brother to run. "Felixus! You gotta move!"
Finally, the elder teen shifted into a running position and bolted up the inclining sand and stone, dropping rocks and sand behind his path.
I prepared to throw another rock to divert its attention away from him, but the alien canine-like creature already had its focus trained on me. It bent at the knees and readied a pounce. A half-second later, it launched itself into the air and covered the distance to me in but a moment.
I threw myself to the side and slid roughly across the earth, the immense body of the almost horse-sized alien striking into the incline in a cloud of dust. Pricks of pain ran down my arms and legs, but I didn't have time to dwell on it. The alien recovered from its crash landing quickly and swiped down at me with a front claw, tearing into the flesh of my leg.
A shriek of pain escaped my lips, and it craned its neck to bite into my chest. I rolled away just enough for it to miss its initial attack, the movement jostling a surely bleeding wound in my left calf muscle. I struck at the thing with a weak fist, smacking it in the face with all the might of a stupid ten year old.
It had the decency to wheel back in what must be surprise and definitely was not pity.
Against the sight of its oncoming onslaught, I threw up my arms in sheer panic, barely conscious of my surroundings from the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. Eyes closed for what must be the end, the canine alien struck at my crossed arms and torso with a mighty swipe of a clawed limb.
My body tumbled end over end in the air until I slammed hard into the earth several yards away. Bile rushed to my throat, and I couldn't keep it down, the substance coating the front of my shirt. Eyes unfocused from the pain in nearly every muscle group, I watched hazily as the alien raced toward me, teeth bared.
A crunch.
Shattered canine fangs fell to the sand in pieces.
I blinked, confused.
A distant Felixus whistled, and Ducius began to beep with alarm, hovering closer and closer to the canine creature. The alien with wounded teeth whirled around to study the drone long enough for me to force myself to my feet. The weather drone shone with bright crimson light for all to see for potentially miles, an emergency pattern of light I'd only seen once before, and the volume of its alarm klaxons was significant. The canine tried to angle a strike of its claw toward the drone, but it sped out of the way and merely angered the damn thing even more.
Adrius clambered down to me and began to pull on my arm. "You're okay, you're okay. Let's, uh, get you-" I winced in pain as his pulling forced me to put my weight on the wounded leg, and he stared with wide eyes.
"Other side," I hissed and gestured.
He maneuvered around to take weight off of the wounded leg as he helped me to more solid ground as swiftly as his legs would take him. Felixus was at the top to join us, eyes torn between watching the alien chase after the robot and watching his brother escort me closer to safety.
"We need to move," I muttered, pushing forward with all of my thoughts on getting out of this alive. "That won't last forever."
Felixus took over for Adrius in holding up my weaker side, and we began the trek through the desert, leaving Ducius behind to keep the thing busy.
"It's blind," the elder brother muttered after a long moment. "It doesn't have eyes."
I realized what he was getting at a moment later. "Smart. How long, uh, can Ducius do that routine without you there to guide it?"
Felixus and Adrius did not have an answer.
OSMOS V
February 26, 02:42 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
I was not sure how I was going to explain any of this to my parents. Truth be told, I was probably still on thin ice from the stunt I pulled with Father's office, even years later. I threw myself into danger intentionally with a reckless decision that could have ended with me dead or worse - Felixus and Adrius dead.
I had a truly awful three-pronged gash on the back of my leg, and putting any weight on it was excruciating. Blood had soaked completely through the simplistic binding we'd made with one of the brothers' scarves. Each step closer to Sanitas was a step closer to having to tell the truth, and I knew in the long run that this was a lesson that the brothers had to learn.
Had I not been there…?
"Cassian, you…," Adrius repeated for the umpteenth time, perhaps more in shock than any of us were. "You're okay. You're okay."
We cut through the city's perimeter. The familiar sights of domed buildings amid sandy winds added a layer of security to our trek. Whatever that creature was, if it was going to follow us here, surely some adult would notice before it got us.
"I will be okay," I said, fighting through the weakness from losing so much blood. Honestly surprised that I was still conscious. "Stay long enough for my mother to look you over."
The brothers did not object, but as we passed further into familiar territory, their movements became slower and more deliberate. I couldn't help but smile through the pain - kids will be kids.
The exterior door to my home on the outskirts opened with barely a sound. Mother strode across the sands, fury pouring from every pore. "Where have you been?"
"Mistress Lucrecia," Feliuxus pointed to my leg, "Cassian is hurt. We're sorry! We tried to find this meteor we saw but found an alien instead, and it attack-"
"Cassian!" The anger fell away from her in an instant. She dropped to her knees in a whirl and looked over my leg. "Are either of you hurt?" The brothers shook their heads. "Felixus, get you and your brother home. Thank you for getting Cassian here. We'll talk more later."
They scurried off in a hurry once it was clear that things were going to be fine for them. I didn't blame them for not trying harder to stay.
"Mother, they were so stupid, they were going-"
She glared at me. "They?"
I deserved that.
"We need to get you to the hospital," she muttered as calmly as she could, clearly breaking under the stress. "The cuts are bad enough, but you said an alien did this?"
I glanced at her. "You're taking this remarkably well."
"How else am I supposed to take it, son? Acting hysterical is not going to get you to feel any better any time s-soon." She took a deep breath. "An alien?"
"It climbed out of a ship or a pod or something. I'd never seen anything like it before that was native to Osmos V. It's possible, I guess, that it could just be an animal I didn't recognize, but it sure looked like a spaceship's crash landing."
Mother nodded as she pulled the scarf down long enough to get a look at it and then tightened it again and supported my weight with her shoulder. "If that was really something from another planet, then there is a dangerous chance of infection."
Maybe it was the weakness from loss of blood, but something felt … off. What, exactly, I was not sure how to describe. The broken teeth… The lack of further injuries…
"I think I have the Gift."
She paused and locked eyes with me.
"It tried to bite me and walked away with broken teeth. I didn't - I didn't see how or when, but I think I protected myself. Became like stone?"
Mother clearly did not know what to think, hesitating for several moments before meeting my eyes again. "The Gift's not unheard of for someone your age, after exposure to trauma, but I hoped you had more time." She paused again and then placed her left hand against the ground beneath her feet. A moment later, sandstone rock encased her from finger to elbow. "This may sting, but it'll better keep any infections away until we can get you to a hospital."
She gripped with gentle fingers the back of my left knee. Sandstone rock swirled from her arm and down my leg until it coated the wound. It brought with it an itching, stinging pain that slowly subsided to a dull ache.
"I didn't know you could do that."
Mother shook her head, sighing. "There's a lot you don't know about the Gift, Cassian. While I am glad that it may have saved your life tonight, rest assured that with it comes a myriad of unique challenges. In some ways, I hoped you'd take after your father."
I didn't. I didn't want to be powerless in this new life.
LOS ANGELES
February 25, 19:51 PST
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Kyle paced across his hallway carpet. He was letting his nerves get the better of him, and he needed to be strong. In a moment like this, he had to be strong. A piece of paper crumbled in his tightened fist, and he could barely bring up the strength to look at it again. There was too much going on for him to be worried about this.
Distantly, his mother struggled with remaining strong. She frantically spoke on the cordless house phone in an animated voice, though what she said made no sense to him. The volume on the television was far too loud, showing the same thing on every channel.
"… roup including my hometown, Coast City's own Green Lantern, have banded together to face off against the invaders!" An explosion in the video feed sounded so loud that it seemed to interrupt those in the studio.
"That's right, Rucker," another news person interjected. "Seems the latest trends in law enforcement around the country have struck a partnership to duke it out with our enemies together. How nice that we have aliens of our own to combat these aliens? If we live to breathe another day thanks to these folks, let's hope they don't take advantage of our weakness and use their newfound alliance against us."
"These guys fight for justice, Godfrey. If they've formed a league, then surely they can-"
Kyle tuned it out and considered whether he should be focused on the alien invasion happening a few states away or on the note he found on his pillow this morning. His mother - well, she hadn't mentioned it to him. Did she know? Or was she pre-occupied with the news?
He read the words one more time, slowly to himself and almost under his breath.
"Kyle,
I know you were hoping I'd stick around longer to hang out, but I'm afraid I can't refuse. My bosses have finally called me up to headquarters.
If you don't see me by Christmas this year, then I'll be sure to send a card by your mom and let you both know how I'm doing.
…
Kid, these days hanging with you have been some of my brightest.
Love,
Gabriel"
Kyle couldn't feel good about it. Gabriel had spent a lot of the last three or four weeks with Kyle and his mother. He hated to see the man go, just like that, but he'd just have to wait on Gabriel to come back so he can give the man a piece of his mind. Kyle knew his mother's heart would be broken. He and she had been flirty, after all!
The boy took a deep breath and then walked into the living room, his mom's frantic voice clearly upset. Some woman on television was talking about that weird bat-guy from Gotham blowing up one of the aliens, but he was only half-listening to the details. "Mom, I found this-"
"What honey?" She looked away from him as the conversation on the phone continued. "So we should head to shelters? What if there is not a shelter? Is base- okay, okay, anything underground."
With a single hand, she pushed Kyle toward the basement door and pointed fervently. Pulling the phone away from her ear, she practically hissed, "Get in there for now, I'll be with you in a second."
He listened to his mother, but he couldn't help but feel sad that she hadn't answered him or noticed him. They said the attack was in Nevada - that's states away from LA! They were going to be fine! Like ReplyReport Reactions:Raregroove_50, CrabbitBlake, Bga20 and 119 othersHmmasterMay 7, 2023Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks 0.5 View contentHmmasterKnow what you're doing yet?Jun 5, 2023Add bookmark#26OSMOS V
March 29, 07:18 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
A month had passed since the alien debacle utterly and completely changed the course of my life. I had a greater picture of what kind of world Osmos was, and the dangerous greater universe that existed around it. And, more importantly to me, I had honest-to-goodness superpowers. Really good ones!
Now, if I could just figure out how they work.
What I'd done before had been instinctive. An accident, really, but a fortunate one to keep that tiger-like alien from ripping me to shreds. And despite the fact that I'd spent every waking moment of free time thinking about how to actively utilize it, I was making nearly no headway. It was almost completely meritless, except that I could feel an object when I touched it with my hands. The feeling was fleeting and difficult to reproduce consciously, but I could sense something within things that I touch that I could not feel before.
It was altogether goddamn frustrating. To be so close to something extraordinary, but unable to step closer and reach it, access it, learn it. I needed to ask someone about it, to get advice, but Mother had the Gift and had been categorically silent on the matter. I fought every urge to mouth off at her dismissive attitude, and I really felt like the petulant child she must believe me to be.
"Why are you being like this?"
Mother gripped the controls for the vehicle, eyes focused on the road.
I called this particular contraption the family station wagon, but it was not too dissimilar from a car, really, though driving it looked far more complex. A few years back, it had been a shock the first time Father switched the settings to a hover-mode, which allowed us passage across thicker, sandy dunes that had covered miles of the usual road pathway.
Mother had been nearly totally quiet for the entire trip, and I still did not know where we were going. Nor did I know why she was so cold.
"Mother, just tell me what's wrong."
The woman sighed and flipped a switch, forcing the vehicle to change into a higher gear. She answered without losing focus on her driving. "There is nothing wrong, Cassian."
My fingers balled into a tight fist. "And why should I believe that? I'm not stupid."
"I never said you were, son. That's the problem."
I looked away for a second, watching the sun preparing to set in the skies far above both of us. "It's not my fault that I pay attention to things. If you'd like, I can start pretending to not notice how no one trusts me."
They'd proven it on more than one occasion, and nothing had been the same between any of us since I uncovered Father's secret office shelter space. He'd been gone to the Capital for weeks now, and he claimed it was a business trip, but I know better. Whatever it is, he was doing something dangerous. I deserved to know about it, and who knows? Maybe there's something I can do to help. But they didn't trust me.
"Cassian," Mother began and then stopped herself, sighing. "Your Father and I want you to be exactly who you are."
"I don't buy that," I said without hesitation. "If you did, you'd be teaching me how the Gift works. You'd be-"
"No," she interrupted.
"No?" I asked. "Why? I've got powers. They're as natural to me as being blond."
Mother shook her head, exasperated. "This issue is complex, Cassian. It's not as simple as that."
"Then, when will it be less complicated? Before or after the next alien crash lands in our backyard? Or some lunatic attacks my school? Or I get mugged? Or I-"
She slowed the station wagon to a stop, and my words died in my throat. A cloud of dust from treads scraping against sand swirled up and obscured the view of outside for a moment. She watched the dust dissipate for a moment before she cleared her throat and met my gaze, her eyes intense.
"Cassian – having the Gift does not give you the right to use it for self-defense."
My eyes blinked in confusion.
"Do you kn-know what I mean? Self-defense is when you protect you-"
"I know what it means, Mother." I glanced away for a long second, remembering several arguments from my previous life about this topic. "You wouldn't want me to use the Gift in any of those if my life was in danger?"
Mother sighed. "I would want you to live. If you have no other means available, and no other options, then using the Gift would be appropriate."
… What?
"But the one thing I would always have in those scenarios are my powers." I clenched my fist and imagined it like stone or like glass.
"Perhaps," she admitted quietly. "But other options are available that should be your first impulse."
"Martial arts or hand-to-hand?" I thought back to the blaster weapon I found in Father's secret bunker of an office. "Or are you going to train me how to use a plasma blaster, then?"
She glared at me like I'd grown a second head. "Cassian, you're eight years old. It's far too early-"
"I almost died!"
"And whose fault is that?!"
…
This was unhealthy.
This was an unhealthy conversation for both sides of this damn argument.
"Mother, I already told you that they were going to go on their own, and that I wanted to keep an eye on them."
Mother shifted the vehicle into gear once more, eyes turned toward the road. "And I'll ask again: why do you think that it's your job to look out for other kids? You're younger than all three of them – you aren't responsible for their actions, Cassian, and you should have told an adult."
I can acknowledge her point. She wasn't wrong – in retrospect, telling someone else was absolutely the right thing to do. When I agreed to it, I thought it was just some stupid rock that had crashed. This I'd pointed out to her already, more than once, during the weeks that had followed. She was still emotionally in turmoil about the whole thing, and I could relate. It turned out to not be a stupid rock at all, and that meant what I did was probably the single stupidest thing I could have done.
And yet – had I not been there? I'm convinced that Adrius and Felixus would be dead. The elder brother had been paralyzed in fear, and the younger was generally too thick-headed to make good decisions. Maybe they'd have fled in time, maybe not, but I got them both moving in time and unintentionally tanked an attack that could have killed either of them, based on genetic lottery alone. Even if they were fortunate enough to have the Gift or to have an Exception, it might not have developed in that moment like it had for me. Manifestations for any Osmosian power were tied to moments of stress, but not all moments of stress are made equally for everyone.
"Look – you and I both know that you're right about that," I said, running my fingers along the leather-like armrest. "Hindsight alone says you were, and if I could live the moment over again, there are many things I would have done differently."
"Like tell an adult?"
"Sure." I won't tell her that an adult already knew. "But regardless of the event itself, it's over. I lived through it, and so did they. And now, I have these abilities that I don't understand. The same abilities you have, Mother, and you won't even talk to me about them. Not without shutting down or starting an argument."
She said nothing for a long few seconds, face resolute, and I fought the urge to scream.
"You're really going to do it again?" I asked as calmly and quietly as I could.
"Cassian, I'm not doing anything."
"Exactly! You aren't! You know how frustrating it is that my own Mother is not mature enough to teach me about a huge part of her life?"
Every second she took to consider what to say was another second that just infuriated me further.
"How many times have you seen me use the Gift?"
The question forced me to stop and think.
Until that day with the community theatre performance, I had never seen her use it. And… a handful of other times since?
"The Gift is not a huge part of my life," she finally says. "There is a reason for that, and when we get to the Capital, I'll show you why."
OSMOS V
March 30, 12:06 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The Capital of the Triarchy was a magnificent city, larger than any I'd seen in my first or second life. I'd taken a trip to New York in fifth grade - it was larger than New York City and its five boroughs, and this mass of towering structures was only the Overcity. Beneath the Capital was a network of tunnels and chambers that housed citizens, businesses, and organizations alike. Descriptions from class always talked about how the Undercity was where a bulk of the people truly lived and worked, and that it became really crowded in times of danger.
The Capital's customs department checked our vehicle, their workers dressed in vibrant green robes. I was surprised at how varied some of them looked – a man with a horn like a rhino growing from his shoulder asked Mother a few questions, and I gave him a smile when he chose to spare me from the same questioning. It was one of the only benefits to being a child again. People tended to dismiss you and default to the adult around you, and I hated talking to official people in any capacity.
Mother readied the treads to move again, but she turned to the customs officer before she pulled away. "The receiver on this old thing is not working. Any news we should know about?"
The shoulder-horned man shrugged. "I don't pay much attention, unless it directly affects me."
That attitude always struck me as frustrating. How could you not care about the goings-on of your community?
"Are we expecting there to be news?"
"There's always news, Cassian. It's important to pay attention."
Mother drove us through the open gate and into the first district of the city. Cramped streets with various tourist-trap businesses lining either side encompassed much of the focus here, and the crowds moved about their day without a care in the world. I hoped that was true – that today was a perfectly normal day in the Capital, and that we weren't going to have to deal with some monumental moment.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" She reached with nervous fingers for something in another compartment and slid a piece of paper into my hand. In tight, Osmotin script, her handwriting read, "They are listening. Say nothing about your father or your aunt. Do not mention the alien to anyone except your Father or to me, and only when I tell you that it's safe."
I stared in utter bewilderment. With a hasty writing of my own pen, I scrawled in Osmotin, "Who are they?"
The station wagon pulled down a less busy street, a grimy atmosphere taking over the farther away we were from the city's gates. Muck, graffiti, and debris filled the designated areas for foot-traffic as well as vehicle movement. Smog choked the air around the city, and what efforts were there to make the city look appealing were becoming less effective. It was still incredible to see, and if the Overcity was this bad, I doubted that the Undercity was any better.
Mother pushed my arm and then gestured with a finger toward a holographic display floating above a whole city block. I recognized the three Elders of the Triumvirate, standing together in profile. Gordia looked ancient – wizened skin, prominent horns, and silvery hair that was tied in a tight bun, adorned with golden bands that matched the color of her robes. Cato was fierce in stature and build, his hair cropped short and his green clothing chosen to accentuate his body-builder-like physique. Seneca was nearly as muscular and far prettier, wearing tight blue robes that showed far more of his bare torso than I might have expected to see.
More concerning than that were the words in Osmotin below: "The Triumvirate wishes for you to Reach for the highest of peaks."
"Them?" I wrote carefully, and Mother tightly nods. "The Elders, the Reach, or both?"
Mother did not know.
OSMOS V
March 30, 14:46 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Aunt Jula was clearly a powerful business executive, just from the size of the towering building within one of the nicer districts of the Overcity. She worked for a highly successful robotics company, and she would be the equivalent of a vice president of marketing back on Earth. The amount of money she must bring home was staggering, and I was surprised that she shared with her brother – my Father – almost none of it.
The tall, robotic attendant escorted us to the elevator and took us to one of the upper floors to wait on a free moment, and we'd made it all the way into the innards of the building before we ever saw a living person. "You really must wait for another time. Mistress Jula is in the midst of a very important meeting."
Mother's lips were tight, and it was clear she hated the C3PO wannabe. "I'm sure that it will be fine. She will be expecting the two of us."
The robot tried to argue again, but Mother deftly avoided anything more specific and continued walking. I followed after, confused as to why this glorified secretary was allowing us through if it was such an imposition.
The elevator opened with a whir of sound, revealing the spartan interior of a high-tech office building, equipped with laboratories down each wing and overlooking a larger factory space below. Several men and women were busy with various factors of their job, utilizing robotic attendants to carry messages, brew beverages, or load heavy crates into storage containers. The din of the factory floor below filled the ambient noise of the office.
Mother walked as though she owned the place, ushering me along, until I finally spotted someone that I'd only ever seen in pictures. The dark-haired woman dressed modestly in flowing midnight blue robes that screamed wealth. She leaned over a table, while a team of workers presented a new kind of hook-armed drone to her. A trio of horns grew from her forehead and temples, showing her full maturity compared to her brother, as well as many of the staff present within the facility.
Mother loudly cleared her own throat, and Jula stiffened. "Lucrecia! Cassian! It is a pleasure to see you."
The robotic attendant trailing us interrupted, "Apologies, Mistress Jula. I tried to dissuade them, but they were very insistent."
Jula waved it off. "Not to worry. I am sure they will not be long."
My aunt dismissed the team and ended her meeting early, approaching us both. The robot finally returned to its post after another quick command. "I may have to request their security protocols to be reworked."
Mother said nothing to that.
With no further interruptions, Jula took the time to study us, eying me up and down for a long few seconds. Her face was difficult to read – was she actually happy to see us, to meet me? The woman was family, but I had heard plenty of mixed opinions over the years. And I suspected that the message Father exchanged with her about the Reach was not a great sign about the woman's character.
"I am surprised to see you without Horatio."
Mother grimaced. "I am surprised to see that you don't already know where he is."
My head whipped toward her so fast that I nearly strained my neck. I remembered Mother's warning, and I gripped onto her arm to show support, and to calm myself. Does Mother not know where Father is? Is he actually in danger?
Aunt Jula gravely frowned. "This is not a conversation for the public."
"I think it could be," Mother challenged. "If you want it to be private, then it best be truly private."
The emphasis on the word worried me more than anything else about the conversation. Father had truly gotten himself into trouble, and Mother dragged me all the way to the Capital with her on her quest to help him. I was grateful to be here and not stuck at home with a babysitter.
Once Jula brought us to a secluded office, Mother gestured around the room. "Is it safe?"
Jula considered the question with wide eyes. "Of course it is."
"You're certain that we are alone?"
"Get on with it," the businesswoman demanded. "Lucrecia, I must admit, I don't know what all of this is about. How long has it been since you heard from my brother?"
Mother began pacing throughout the room, and I found a quiet spot to watch these two women converse. The pressure of what this trip actually meant surged through me. I had hoped this was merely a vacation – that we were going to meet with Father to surprise him, spend some time with him while he was working, and then return home with or without him after a few days. Clearly, that was not the case.
"Nine days."
Jula gasped, and I swallowed. "Why haven't you-"
"I have reported it to the authorities," Mother explained, "but you and I both know that this is not the first time that I've had to do this. He turns up every time."
Father had a reputation with the authorities? Since when? All of this came down to that bunker, but what exactly it meant was unclear.
"Why?" I asked, interrupting before Jula can respond. "Has he gone missing before?"
Jula acknowledged me with a surprised blink. "Cassian, why don't you step outside? There should be snacks-"
"He can stay," Mother interrupted, before I could voice my own objection.
"But he-"
"He knows," Mother explained further. "Not the full extent of it, but he's more than capable of hearing about this."
What? Now she trusted me?
Jula considered me for a long time and then slowly nodded, clearly torn between two sides. "My brother has held some… interesting views about the Triarchy for most of his life. He can speak for himself as to why, but he's been involved with a group of radicals. Radicals are-"
"I know what that means."
Jula hesitated for a long moment and then huffed. "Smart little one, aren't you?"
I continued, not wanting to deflect the attention to me. "He was radicalized to do what, exactly?"
Mother leaned forward onto the empty office desk, running fingers across a metallic panel. "During the early years, the group, called Carnifex, was all about government corruption."
I tried to square that knowledge with what I knew, what I'd overheard, what I'd uncovered. Some pieces did fit, but he was some political activist? Or, more concerningly, a terrorist? He'd kept his politics to himself for most of my life, and even then, I'd only heard small snippets of his thoughts. A conversation with Grandfather came back to me, where they encouraged me to think critically about the government.
"Carnifex was good at what it did," Jula added. "Organized protests. Boycotted businesses. Stole shipments of resources. Brutalized Triarchy supporters." With each accusation, her tone grew in intensity. "The list goes on. Horatio worked with them for years, and I tried to pull him away from that life, from the violent bent that the group gained over time. He didn't listen, and we haven't been on good terms for nearly three decades."
I could not believe what I was hearing. I looked to Mother for confirmation, but it was clear that this wasn't a lie. Or at least, Jula's recollection was something close to the truth.
"Father hurt people?" I asked.
"He stayed with them until he met me." Mother met my gaze, a striking twinkle in her eyes. "I asked him the same questions. He swore he was not involved in any of the aggression. I agreed with him that the Triarchy had issues that needed solutions, but... hurting people isn't a choice I'd make. When I became pregnant with you, he left Carnifex and that life behind, to be a better father for you."
It was nice to hear that he stopped working with them after having me, but that was confusing. A terrorist group in one view, a freedom-fighting group in another. Which was right? The schools were not telling us to think critically about the Triarchy and its leaders. There could be all kinds of abuses going on that were hidden from the children, and for normal children, I'd consider that the right thing to do. I'm not a normal child, and I want to know exactly why the Triumvirate were so awful.
"Why tell me all this now?" I asked, trying to figure out where to go or what questions to ask. "I could have handled learning this earlier. Explains the bunker-"
"You found his bunker?" Jula asked, chuckling.
"Technically, the cleaning robot found it after I took apart the panel."
She snickered. "He hated that thing!" Her snicker grew into a cackle for a solid few seconds until Mother pacified her with a dark look. My aunt sheepishly looked down.
"We tell you this now because old contacts from Carnifex reached out to him, asked him to come back to the fold."
Jula turned a judgmental look toward both of us. "He didn't refuse this time."
I almost asked them what changed, and then I realized exactly the reason. "The Reach."
OSMOS V
March 30, 17:13 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Aunt Jula accompanied us inside, despite Mother's insistence that this was a family matter. Jula was family, I reminded her, and my aunt looked happy to see me defending her. She was all but a stranger, but I'd had several aunts and uncles in my first life who meant the world to me. If I could give her a chance, then maybe she would come around to mean something.
I was not sure exactly why we were in a rather small, overcrowded hospital, and the businesswoman stood out like a sore thumb compared to the working-class folk who stumbled into its walls. Hospitals here smelled a lot like they did on Earth, but the decor was black instead of a sterile white. There were as many robotic servants here as there would be custodial workers back home.
"Is Father here?" I asked, passing an open doorway where two apparent nurses tried to calm a man with severe burns across his chest, another nurse in the back of the room preparing fresh bandages. "I thought we didn't know where he was."
"Well, he could be here," Mother admitted, "and I'll ask if anyone's seen him. But we aren't here for him."
"Horatio wouldn't come here of all places," Jula said disdainfully. "This is barely better than the Undercity."
I ignored the woman, too caught up in the idea that Father might be in danger, might be wounded, to care about her pride.
"Jula, would you please?" Mother asked as she gestured toward a nursing station, where a bespectacled elderly woman with twin horns sat in an almost librarian pose.
"Can't you flash your credentials from your own hospital?" Jula challenged, but Mother shrugged.
The woman huffed and stalked over to the desk. Mother caught my attention with a tap of my shoulder. "You wanted answers about the Gift."
I frowned. "That – uh, that can wait. Father's in trouble."
Mother nodded solemnly. "My sister-in-law has many connections within the city, Cassian. We are waiting until we hear back from them about where to search, who to ask, and what to do next. We might have to leave the city in a hurry if we find him, so this is the only time. Until then, I want to show you this."
I admired her in that moment. She was holding together remarkably well, and I was not sure that I could do the same in her shoes.
A few minutes of waiting later, and we were standing outside a sealed door. A nurse at the station nearby pressed a button, and part of the door shifted away to reveal a wide viewing portal. Before we could approach to look closer, a man stepped over to the door, his green cloak and blaster revealing his status as a guard. He stood idle and gestured for us to approach, his eyes trained on mine for a long moment.
Inside a completely barren room with blank, stone walls, a single female figure lay prone on the ground. I could barely see anything, because the only light came from the hallway and through the viewing portal. I could just barely see her long, unkempt hair and feminine torso beneath a simplistic, dirty gown. Her features were gaunt, almost devoid of life. Whomever she was, she was starving and in clear distress.
I did not like looking at her like a zoo animal.
"Cassian, meet Luca of Clan Hermos." Mother poked the glass pane. "Luca was – and in some ways, is – my best friend. I consider her as close to me as a sister, even after all this time."
I could not look away from the scene. The slow rise and fall of the woman's chest was barely visible within the only source of light.
"What's wrong with her? She doesn't have a bed, or a quilt? It doesn't look like she's eaten in days."
Mother glanced away for a long moment, and Jula cleared her throat. "I didn't know her, but I can answer the last point. She's too far gone to eat regular meals – it would be… unsafe to do otherwise."
"Too far gone? To what?"
Mother kneeled down to speak on my level. "Son, this is what happens to those that abuse the Gift. Absorbing energy is one of the greatest dangers that our people face. Psychosis. Paranoia. Hallucinations. Aggression."
I'd heard of this – it was difficult to not hear of this, even if the curriculum students were provided at this age did not go into any real detail. It was one thing to hear kids like Adrius bragging about a family friend that he knew, once, that stuck his hand in a campfire and absorbed the whole thing without getting burned or, in his words, "losing his mind." It was another thing entirely to see it here.
"What did she do? How did she… wind up like that?"
"It's a long story, but she... she fell down a dark path. She's in one of the later stages. Too much of a danger to herself or others to be under anything but the most strict surveillance."
"They don't-" I pause, considering what my aunt said earlier. "They don't feed her regularly?"
"Keeps her weak, pliable," Jula explained coolly. "If you built up her strength, she could absorb the floor, the walls, or the ceiling and tear her way out of there."
I blinked, surprised. "Surely there's a better way to keep them-"
Mother pulled me away from the scene and toward the end of the hallway. Her eyes darted toward my aunt and then toward the guard standing outside Luca's room. "Remember what I said about safe, public conversations."
Oh.
I should be careful how I ask questions, when I ask questions, and to whom I ask questions. A critical question in front of a guard who may as well report directly to Elder Cato and his underlings?
The Triarchy was just an autocracy with two extra steps. And maybe a third, with powerful alien allies.
I wanted to find Father soon, if only to assist him in whatever way that I can to stop the them.
MUMBAI
March 31, 01:09 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The moment the door closed behind her, the girl unraveled her clothing with shaking hands. Nervously, she tapped the door handle once to leave a nasty surprise if anyone came looking before she was ready. The window shades were open, a cool night-time breeze blowing strands of pink hair out of her eyes.
Monitors beeped and blinked with light in an otherwise darkened room, the overhead lights turned to their dimmest settings. It was plenty bright enough for a night visit, and she smacked the light switch on the panel to avoid it turning on automatically when she moved around too much inside.
The girl placed herself beside the bed, clambering onto a stool, and feeling that inherent connection to the world around her dull when her feet left the ground. She didn't need it for this.
Unless someone tried to take this moment away from her.
It had been years since she had seen her mother. Her real mother. Jinx studied, silent tears rolling down her cheeks, the woman lying prone, a ventilator strapped to the lower half of her face. Early wrinkles from too many cigarettes had developed, marring brown skin, and her time in the hospital had been long enough to take its toll on her overall complexion.
Jinx still thought the woman looked beautiful, even while hooked into these machines. Her mother had had many boyfriends, and she could remember a few of them before she entered foster care. Jinx still did not understand why she had had to leave in the first place, and the thought brings fresh tears to her eyes.
The girl did not know why her mother was in the hospital. Part of her wished that the woman had been a victim of the Appellaxian attack from the month prior, even if that didn't make much sense. The aliens had come from the skies, looking to take over everything, and some powerful people stepped in to save the world.
It was better to think that her birth mother had been attacked by something, than to believe what Jinx suspected was the culprit: drug use.
"Mātā," she began, face weeping. "Mātā, I am okay. You – you were right; I am scary. But I met some people, and they've been taking care of me. I've been taking care of them too, like you would do for people."
She considered Abhi and his friends – they'd been good to her, especially Fatima. "Because we've been helping each other, I haven't had to sleep on a bench once in years! Years! You'd be proud of me!"
The thought made her happy, and it was almost enough to dry her tears.
"Listen, when you get better, I'm going to buy you a house somewhere. A new car – or, even a palace! Yeah, and there'll be ponies in the backyard we can ride whenever we want. I can teach you how to talk to them, Mātā!"
Someone knocked on the door.
Someone outside screamed.
Jinx darted to her feet and gripped her mother's hand. "Listen, I can't stay any longer, but you get better!"
She shimmied over to the window and reached for the ground far below her. A vine crawled up the side of the building and expanded until it was thick enough to grasp, to hold her weight four stories off of the ground. She wrapped herself around it, just in time to see a group of nurses and doctors burst into the room.
"What is that?!"
"Her skin is gray!"
"Get down from there!"
"Nurse, get my hand some damn burn cream!"
With a thought and a swirling of her fingers, the vine began to descend of its own accord at a rapid pace, bringing her to the street level. At night, it was mostly empty, but she paid the hospital staff that shouted down at her from the window no mind. They wouldn't understand!
She covered her skin again and darted into a nearby alley, ready to slip back into the shadows.
OSMOS V
July 7, 09:57 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Aunt Jula's accommodations were the only saving grace throughout this entire extended stay in the Capital. The penthouse suite above one of the richest districts in the city practically ran itself, with no input needed. Robot butlers prepared meals, readied clothing, and removed trash. There were twenty-seven settings to use to bathe, including one that would automate even the basics of a shower for you. And, blissfully, air conditioning was working with peak performance in every room. I'd gone so long without it, having to live with desert heat even indoors, that it almost made me forget why we were there for a few blissful minutes.
"Felixus swears he saw the Scarlet Scarab!"
The small screen in front of me displayed an excited Adrius, the boy's face obscured with the usual video conference lag. It amazed me, sometimes, how incongruous the technology could be here. This suite had four robotic butlers alone, but they haven't improved upon a damn Facetime call?
Despite that annoyance, the potential meanings of Adrius' words were not lost on me, and every alarm bell in my head was ringing at once.
"Why would Xandros have anything to do with Sanitas?" I asked, assuming for the moment that Felixus was not lying. "The Reach have never cared about anything that remote."
At least, it didn't feel that way. There was only so much that I could uncover about their operations, and publicly, they looked like nothing but angels in the heavens. Maybe they… reached farther than I thought.
"I don't know," Adrius mumbled, before excitedly continuing, a glitching buzz flickering across the screen, "but seriously, he saw him! Armor and everything. He had these big maroon wings, and a jetpack, and he was flying fast across the desert. So fast and so low he whipped up a trail of sand behind him! My brother swears it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen, and I believe him!"
Adrius continued for several seconds in a hurried ramble, while my own mind could not help but stir at the prospect.
The Scarlet Scarab, for better or worse, had made several public appearances at the sites of natural disasters, criminal activity, and other events. A video I'd seen countless times over the years involved him saving dozens of people from a river near the coast when their boat crashed. Another popular clip involved him intervening in an armed conflict between two of the city-states outside of the Triarchy. He took every chance he could to speak in front of a camera - I'd heard several of his speeches over the years, praising our planet's partnership with the Reach and demonstrating what that supposed partnership could do. He was impressive.
And all of it screamed suspicious to me.
"Do you know if he stopped in town?"
Adrius stopped mid-sentence and frowned. "Well, no, but-"
"If he didn't stop in town, then there's nothing to worry about."
Incorrect, but I didn't want the brothers snooping on this. They were in enough trouble as it was.
"Worry?" the boy challenged. "Why would I worry?"
That's exactly the question they wanted everyone to ask.
"It's nothing – just, a feeling. You ever wonder when something is too good to be true?"
Adrius smiled in a way that only a little kid could. "Sometimes! Father tells me that Felixus and I are too good to be true, sometimes." He paused, and for a second, I wondered if he was going to apologize for bringing up his dad in front of me. "Well, when we aren't, uh, in a bunch of trouble."
I felt for the two of them, but I couldn't dwell on it any longer. They didn't suffer any injuries for my screw up, and my own had long since turned to fading bruises running down my arm.
I ended the connection a few minutes later, to spare Adrius more than anything else. Poor kid would be on restriction for months, and I'd hate to add another month to that if his father spotted him talking to me. I was to blame for their children, apparently.
Far too intrigued now, I turned to the monitor to continue researching the Scarlet Scarab. Researching the equivalent of the Internet on Osmos V had become easier, but it was still not as intuitive as search engines on Earth. It wasn't due to the language barrier anymore, but more to just the differences in technology. There was only so much research I could do on my own on a computer available to the publ-
Oh.
Jula's equipment in her office were bound to have some interesting tools.
OSMOS V
July 7, 14:23 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
"Still no word?"
My question hung in the air as I popped my head into her office, to find her behind her desk with a tool in hand. She ignored the question for several seconds, pulled a trigger, and sprayed a small amount of congealing fluid onto her latest project. The inner-workings of a robotic arm clenched and unclenched its fist so rapidly that the extension of its fingers nearly knocked over a desk lamp.
Finally, she pulled the tool away and shook her head, looking at me. "No. Carnifex are quiet."
I sat in her hastily offered chair across from her, uncomfortable netting pinching at my back. "You're sure he's involved with that group?"
"I'm fairly certain. My brother has had a tendency to get in over his head since we were kids," she admitted, eyes still trained on the project lying on her desk. "If I were a betting woman, I'd bet you take after him in that way."
Her tone was sly yet simple, and if I were actually my age, I wouldn't have noticed what she was implying. "I'd be excited to grow up to be half as good."
"Half as good will keep you safe," she said simply, without a hint of judgment. "Half as good will keep your family from wondering if you're gonna make it home."
Mind racing through implications, I leaped at the chance to ask. "You think he's not safe."
Mother, throughout these three months, kept up the mantra that he was in hiding with the rest of Carnifex. That something had gone awry, that they were in too dangerous waters to reach out to their family members. That they would be able to come home soon, once the heat died down. I'd long suspected that there were conversations taking place about where the three of us would go to lie low, once he came home, and that Sanitas was apparently one of those places.
Or at least, it was. With the Reach's potential interest, I was not so sure.
To hear that Jula was skeptical and unemotional? That surprised me.
She seemed to work through what I'd asked after several seconds and cleared her throat, her horns catching a glint in the light. "Cassian, I am sure that he'll be fine."
"How can you be so sure?" I pressed. "It's been months with nothing. Father works with a terrorist organ-"
"He's not a terrorist."
"I don't think he is either," I clarified, "but the Triarchy and the Reach would think so. It doesn't matter what we think."
Jula settled back in her chair and stared out the tinted windows, the beautifully cramped Overcity stretching all the way to the city's outskirt walls, designed to blunt the forces of oncoming sandstorms. I wondered what she was thinking, and compared to Mother, Aunt Jula kept everything close to the vest.
"Be honest with me," I continued, "how likely is it that he's dead?"
Her eyes widened, but she sputtered.
"How likely is it that he's in some maximum security prison?"
"Well, I don't-"
"How likely is it that he's tied to a chair while the Reach probe him?"
"Enough!" She finally shouted. Her face twisted into one of barely-constrained contempt. "Cassian, you've not the foggiest idea what is going on, so stay in your place-"
"No."
She blinked.
"Respectfully, no. It's been months. I'm not going to sit here with a thumb up my ass while my Father lies dead, imprisoned, or as some alien's lab experiment. I'm not just going to go play games in the corner and pretend like my life hasn't been completely upended."
"Your life has been upended?" Jula challenged, some mixture of amusement and anger contorted across her smile. "You think this ordeal has not upended my life completely? Horatio is my brother! His wife and child are now in my care. When I tell you to 'go play games in the corner,' you should jump at the chance. Drop the ungrateful attitude and remember where you are."
I was not about to let this moment slide.
"Oh no. A terrible situation asked you to be a good sister for once, and a good aunt for the first time ever," I poked. "I'm so sorry to have been so difficult to throw off your life."
Aunt Jula sputtered. "You- you have no idea how this has-"
"This place practically runs itself! You've barely had to lift a finger to accommodate two extra people. You live alone in this big house, and I'm starting to realize just why you and Father stopped talking. You're insufferable."
I stormed out of the office. She followed after me to the door, yelling for me to turn around, but I ignored her.
When I had learned that I had an estranged aunt years ago, it was difficult to not associate that with the family I had had in my first life, from Mom's side of the family. They were incredible people, and I had several aunts. I'd lost one of them, my favorite person in the entire world, to cancer at seventeen. While I sat in my too-hot bedroom in Sanitas and dreamed of home, of my real family, I wondered if Aunt Jula was anything like Aunt Connie. She had seemed so cool – a famous inventor and businesswoman in the largest city of this new world? Surely Father was wrong to cut her out of his life.
He had been right.
OSMOS V
July 7, 21:33 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
That night, I slipped into Jula's office. Her terminal stood in its usual spot atop her desk, and accessing it had been easy enough. One of the advantages of Osmotin in this regard is that its pictographic nature as a language made it easy for me to remember passwords I'd seen before, and I'd been in her office while she worked often enough that I'd spotted it.
The Osmotin word for 'brave.' I was not sure how to take that information, but it didn't jive with anything I knew about her.
I spent hours on the terminal, hoping to find something that would make this breach of trust worth it in the end. The robotic attendants powered down for the night, only turning on if you requested something of them, and I'd not have attempted this if they could report to her that I'd been in here. As it was, I had free reign to try this, so long as she stayed asleep and I didn't trip up over any other silent alarms.
The Scarlet Scarab. The Reach Ambassador. Carnifex. Horatio. The Triumvirate. Elder Seneca, Elder Gordia, Elder Cato. The Gift. Jula. Lucrecia. Cassian. Canine alien sightings. Feline alien sightings. Sanitas. The Capital.
I left no stone unturned, and it was surprising just how much more information this terminal could access. Jula's connections likely included some on the upper echelons of society, and I frankly wondered if she had some kind of security clearance – or the Osmosian equivalent of the idea. There were tons of sites with articles that involved countless subjects, far more than the simplistic wiki-crawls I'd been able to do before, and some of it seemed sensitive to me.
Several pieces of information stood out to me as potentially concerning, but it was difficult to tell which were real areas of concern and which were the equivalent of a UFO sighting report in a tabloid.
A man claimed a freak vine moved of its own accord and knocked down a supporting wall for his home, and then ran away before it could be analyzed. Suffice it to say that Osmos V had no such flora.
Xandros supposedly was on a diplomatic trip to one of the city-states far to the south, beyond the boundaries of the Triarchy. He could have easily passed Sanitas on the way, but there were other routes he could have taken, if I understood the map correctly. From what Adrius said, the armored man was flying fast, and he really could have just been in the area. I can't help but feel that nothing is that simple.
An anonymous poster supposedly from Carnifex claimed that they were going to assassinate Elder Gordia and even posted dates and specific plans. That date had long passed, and the woman was still alive and in charge. If this one were true, I feared that Father would be unreachable after an assassination attempt failed.
But the most concerning – because it seemed more probable - were a recent rash of disappearances across the Triarchy. Dozens of people – men, women, elderly, young – were missing without a trace, all within the last two years. There were hints that there were investigators looking into the pattern, and conflicting reports from different organizations across the country and beyond were looking into the source.
I was knee-deep in an article about a Carnifex-supported violent protest a few years ago, connected maybe to the missing people, when someone grabbed my arm and spun me around.
"What are you doing?" Mother hissed, her face half-shadowed from the light of the terminal and the darkened chamber.
"I was- I am trying to see what I can learn!"
"Son, this is ridiculous. Let's go-"
"Please, Mother! Aunt Jula's terminal has so much more information!"
"I'm sure that it does, but this is not your-"
I finally pull my hand away from her grasp. "If one more person tells me to stop trying to help save my own Father, I'll… I'll run to the officials and fucking ask them directly."
That was not much of a threat, because Mother had already tried that and learned next to nothing.
Steaming with anger, I continued. "You're just like her. You don't want me doing anything. You aren't even doing anythin-"
Her hand grasped my shoulder so quickly that it cut off my train of thought, her grip painful. "Cassian, you don't have any…"
Her voice broke, and the next thing I knew, she hugged me. Tears rolled down the back of my neck, and I accepted the slight pain of her tight embrace. I leaned into it, grateful for the contact, and rubbed her back slightly. The tension in her muscles was clear as day, and I… I wasn't helping.
I was merely adding to the stress of an already horrific situation.
God damn it.
"I'm sorry."
She didn't let go and continued to sob. "Don't be sorry. I am sorry."
Mother turned to the computer terminal and hesitated, almost amused. "What do you think you've found?"
I smiled, too eager to show her to care about her almost dismissive expression. I'd prove to her this was real, or that this had potential.
OSMOS V
July 7, 23:07 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The man stepped from a sand-blasted alley and into the busy streets of one of the largest cities he'd ever seen. Carefully, he adjusted the jacket he'd just stolen, stretching its slightly ill fit. It wasn't the most difficult disguise he'd ever had to wear, but he was grateful that he hadn't had to wear a synthetic skin or elaborate contacts or a full-body cast.
After all, most of the people throughout the tightly-packed streets were roughly the same height, the same build, and had many of the same physical features as he did naturally. Compared to his last assignment, it was far easier physically to ingratiate himself into the population of Osmos V, and he suspected that was largely the reason he'd been called for this mission.
The parameters were clear enough to understand. He had a very task-oriented mind. It was often best, for him, to take every infiltration mission one step at a time. Considering the implications of what might be happening on this planet behind the scenes, if he tried to do too much too quickly, he could easily fail to gain useful intelligence before he was uncovered.
So, he started small: investigate the disappearances of several individuals across Osmos V's primary world power and uncover what, if any, connections they may have to the Reach. Depending on how things unravel, the situation could get incredibly messy incredibly quickly, on a political scale that far outweighs the planetary politics of Osmos V.
He settled into an Overcity bar, ordering a drink that would overpower a simple human body. He sipped it to keep up appearances until his potential mark arrived, and even the taste of it was overbearing. He knew how to hide his reactions, maintaining neutrality, while he studied the patrons of the bar.
The translator implant behind his ear worked overtime to filter even the small background chatter into English. He would have to be careful whom he talked to – he'd spent weeks aboard the ship studying Osmotin as a language to become fluent but the translator would carry much of the weight during his time here.
These were the usual conversations that people have, even back on Earth. The names were different, the customs were different, but people are people. Men and women discussed their relationships, they discussed their careers, and they discussed current events. Those conversations were always the most enlightening for a man in his profession, so he turned his focus on them.
"Why here?"
He glanced upward to the bartender, a pretty redhead with horns jutting from her head, indicating that she was likely four times as old as he was, but looked no older than twenty-five. She smirked as they made eye contact.
"Just missing my son. Decided to drink away my sorrows before I meet a friend."
The woman eyed him, ignoring someone down at the other end of the counter asking for a drink. Her coworker shot her an annoyed look and then went to get the order.
"Why do you miss him? Handsome thing like you separated from his unlucky mother?"
The man played along and showed some of his genuine remorse. "A little of that. Job forced me to travel abroad, and I might be away from him for a long time."
The bartender reached over to try to place a comforting hand on his. He pulled his hand away, knowing humans were noticeably warmer than Osmosians.
"You have my sympathies. Anything I can do to make you feel better tonight? A stronger drink perhaps?"
If he tried any stronger, even the small sips he had made might strip his stomach lining.
"No, thank you."
The bartender shrugged. "Suit yourself. If you need anything else, just ask for Lushila. Your name?"
"Just Gabriel."
The bartender returned to her post, and Gabriel returned to his own. A tap of his earlobe ensured the translator was recording everything for study later, and he continued to wait for the real purpose of his stay to arrive.
A near half-hour passed, putting the time well after midnight, before he finally spotted his target. An elderly Osmosian entered the establishment alone, and from the shape and length of the horns, Gabriel knew he was much older than even the bartender. The man's appearance matched what information he had, and Gabriel stood from the chair to greet him.
The man's exhaustion was clear on his face and in his gait, and he looked even older than he really was. In his arms were a stack of familiar pamphlets.
"Maximus," the human offered as he approached, surprising the elderly Osmosian. "I apologize for interrupting your evening, but I am certain that if you listen to what I have to say, you will be grateful you took the time to speak to me."
"Who are you?"
Gabriel introduced himself by name and then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled a pamphlet he'd taken from the street earlier that day, one with information about a missing man. "Someone with information about the whereabouts of your son, Horatio."
The pamphlets under the elderly man's arms scattered across the ground.