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 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.