Thirty
The picture, the woman. She was the secret to understanding Xade. He’d called her his wife. She’d obviously meant something to him at one point. How long ago was hard to tell. He’d been fucking around with human genetics in the seventeen hundreds. I didn’t know how that was possible, whether it was time distortion or magic or something, but he’d been alive a long, long time.
I needed to focus less on the E’mani history in regards to Earth and their tampering, and more on the E’mani people themselves. How did they get this way? What event happened to change the course of their history? I refused to believe the E’mani were pure evil. Sometimes I saw the clones and the dull look in their eyes and felt…less hate. That was all I would admit to.
How did they get this way. What were they doing exactly, and why? Once I figured that out, I would have the answers I sought.
I sat up on the bed. Marin didn’t come home last night. Not that I expected him to. With a grimace, I got to my feet, lifted my armpit and sniffed. I was fine. Yesterday’s clothes were good enough for me.
The suns were peeking over the horizon when I exited the room. A quick pass of the cafeteria and I was off. The path seemed eerie in the gloom of the morning. I should have gotten Zanth or Finn, some friends. Not Marin. I’d probably not like where he spent the night. Jesus, this was creepy.
They’d kept the fire going through the night. Rael and Prog lay on their bellies, arms and wings spread wide, faces in the dirt. They almost looked like they were swimming on land. Dela and Erin cuddled. Roger leaned against a nearby tree, snoring. Vale slept by his feet.
One of the twins, the belly scar one, Werner, tossed a branch into the crackling flames. His red eyes turned to glisten at me.
“Hello, Beta,” he whispered so as not to wake the others.
The heat from the blaze drew me, along with the smell of burning wood, and the sound of the flames. I went to sit next to him.
As soon as I sat, Werner nudged me. He spread his fingers out in front of me. The webbing was so delicate I could see a pulse cascading through the fine layers of skin. I touched the tips of my index finger to the membrane.
He squeaked.
I yanked my finger back, eyes flying to take in his face. “I am so sorry…”
He was grinning at me. “Just playing, Beta.”
I huffed, my lips curving. “Do you know the computers?”
“No, that is Dela’s thing. I can get you into the E’mani bassess. So much of theirr technology is bassed off ourr crrysstal.”
My foot poked at the edges of the pit. “The translucent rock, the stuff the desk is made of, the tubes?”
“Yess, it iss mined in the Cairrn Isslandss easst of herre. The whole issland iss crrysstal, mountainss of it surrounded by ssome dirt. The prroperrtiess of it arre rremarrkable, nearrly indesstrructable.” Warren broke a twig and threw the wood into the fire. It popped when it hit.
Rael cursed and rolled over, barely missing crushing Prog beside him, to sit straight up. He crouched, his eyes scanning the woods.
I pointed at Werner. “His fault.”
Rael’s head tipped to the side and he pivoted to crouch next to us. “What are we talking about?”
“The E’mani crystal, I was being polite and letting Dela sleep for a bit before he gets me into the computers again.” I stretched out hands to the flames.
Rael nodded and perched at my side. His wings brushed my back. The feathers tickled and there were such a wide array of colors all in one. I reached out and stroked my hand down his arm. His skin visibly tightened and he let out a near coo. I lifted my eyes to his purple ones.
Werner threw the last bit of his branch into the fire. “Ssince you arre awake, Rrael, I will ssleep.” He inclined his head to me then hopped under his blanket near Roger’s at the forest’s edge.
Rael plucked a feather from his wing and held it out. “Here.”
He took the stalk and drew soft filaments down my nose. I couldn’t stop my answering smile and question. “How close were we?”
“You do not remember anything?” Rael peered at the ground.
“No, well, some, I remember Xade mostly and fighting and pain, lots and lots of pain.”
He grunted. “There was a lot of that for all of us.” He reached out and warmed his hands. “Xade liked to put some of us together to see what happened. He would pit us against each other in games. That was how Erin lost her eye. You and Erin were the weakest physically, so he had me train you, and Dela train Erin. We became friends, but we were never intimate like Erin and Dela. You remind me of my baby sister, Seri. She never listened to me either. Once Xade realized that the contact gave us comfort, we never fought again. I have not gotten to talk to you for close to fifteen years—”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “How long was I in there?” My heart raced, mind whirling like a Ferris wheel. How was that even possible? I remembered when they took me. It couldn’t have been that long ago. Yet so many memories crowded my head.
Rael’s voice gentled. “I am sorry, Beta. We have been their prisoners for many decades. Out of all of us, you suffered the greatest. Xade favored you. Most days they were too busy to bother with us and we slept in the tubes. But Xade never left you alone. Every day there was some pain, some test.” His hands clenched, knuckles cracking. “I tried to help you, make you strong. It did not help, the training only made you bolder and more reckless.”
I was stuck on the fifteen years, but…how. My mind stuttered and then the memory of a Xade’s voice in my head, not just my nightmares.
“Get in the tube, Elizabeth,” he commanded.
I huddled in the corner of the room, keeping my back to the wall, hiding my battered face. “No, no, no, no, no.”
“The tube will make the pain go away. The crystal heals you.” He reached out a hand.
I glanced up at the words. My body still shook and blood still streamed from my nose to stain my lips. “Why did you take me?”
“You remind me of her.”
“Who?”
“My wife, she was perfect except one fatal flaw. I need to fix that. The tubes help. In there, the tissue heals regardless of the damage. I could break your back, sever your spine, it would grow back. But I cannot correct the flaws already there in your DNA. Now.” Xade wiped his blade on his pants, the dark fabric obscuring the stain. “Either you get in the tube or we start again.”
Nothing could keep me away from that tube, my refuge and my tomb.
He kept people alive for centuries and he’d been around for longer than that. When he talked about reviving his wife, he wasn’t talking as a zombie. She was suspended in one of those tubes. This was all about her.
But how does this help me? Saving her was his motivation. Maybe we should find out where she rested and hold her captive? And that would make us no better than him, keeping slaves. My stomach rolled at the thought. No, imprisoning her wasn’t the answer, but the information was interesting none the less.
So the tubes they kept us in suspended cell death. Did they erase time? Because Xade spent the majority of his time supervising and running experiments, most of them on me. Given that I still looked and felt in my early twenties, the crystal was pretty freaking effective, but like anything, it had to have a power source.
Before I came here, I knew it was urgent. The land told me that the people couldn’t survive in there much longer.
“Werner,” I called out. Nobody fell asleep that fast.
He rolled over in response. “Yess?”
“Where do they get their power?” I threw a branch into the fire, watching the wood char and ignite.
“Hrrm, Therre used to be powerr plantss. They’d disscoverred a new type of rock in the island that could storre enerrgy better. They’d had me worrking on it prriorr to theirr leaving.”
A new crystal or metal that conducted and stored electricity.
“Elizabeth.” Xade’s voice woke me. I jerked in the tube.
His beaming face waited outside. Ugh. The tube’s walls zipped back and I fell. Xade kicked me. “I have excellent news, the quarum is ready. Unlimited power. The universe is obtainable again. Now we are no longer leashed to this world of ours and those closest. Is that not exciting news?” His eyes glowed, arms spread wide. “We must prepare. I want to test something.”
No, please, not again.
“It's quarum,” I said.
“I do not know.”
“It means they can go anywhere. No wonder they haven’t been back. They’d learned all they could here. This is their home base, but he didn’t find the answers here.”
Thorn sauntered up to the fire. “That correlates with what we know. For the past ten or twenty years, we have seen little activity. The bases we watched in our other form, they were deserted. The E’mani left most of it. There are still a few big cities, Bretelyn, which is about five hours to the north of here. It is still standing.”
That name meant nothing to me, but it was a start. We were safer than I thought, but Xade would be back for me. After all, I was his favorite.
I studied the monitor in front of me. The E’mani documented everything. And they’d been around for a long time. The files seemed endless and so freaking boring. Focusing on Xade Corinthian yielded more information.
Born, however long ago my time, he was the star of their society, the cream of the crop. He’d mastered physics and math at a young age then focused his attention on biology. This subject held unlimited fascination for him, discovering the how’s and why’s of things.
Xade was the definition of a people watcher. He enjoyed observing what made people tick, then crushing them with the information. He’d used these “powers” wisely in his meteoric rise to success. Already a key member of society, his advancements in genetics helped them eradicate multiple diseases in their populace and improved their life span, which was significantly longer than humans. The discoveries rocketed him to the head of the Science Department of their people. He spearheaded their search for new technology and instigated a turning point in their history. The discovery of the see-through rock, it was conductive, strong, and impenetrable. It could withstand any temperature and its structure didn’t degrade. In other words, it was the perfect material for a spaceship. In less than a decade, they were airborne, their only limit, power. For the past few centuries, their race had traveled searching for specimens nearby.
Before that, Xade focused his studies at home. The histories state Xade pushed for cloning. At first, the clones were used for spare body parts. Then they started using them for labor. Soon, most jobs were delegated to the “disposable.”
Then the history stopped. A century or two ago, it appeared that all information ceased. I’d bet my bottom dollar, he destroyed his race. He gave them something like he did on Earth, something he made sure he was immune to, and then he started over with the lines he approved of, or maybe there was some sort of civil war. It surprised me he kept no records except for his research. They must be here somewhere.
Holy shit. I tapped my fingers on the desk. What did he use?
Marin asked from beside me, “Did you find anything?”
I admit it, I screamed like a little wee girl. “What the fuck, Marin?”
He grinned at my glare. “Well?”
I rubbed my eyes. How long had I been at this anyways? “Um, I think so. I think Xade killed the E’mani like he did to both our races. Something he gave them that wiped out all but a few. Then he cloned himself some copies. From this, I don’t even think there are any E’mani left, only clones and a few main lines that Xade controls. It’s crazy.”
Marin leaned over me to peer at the information. As he scanned the data, I became acutely aware of his body pressing into my back. His hair brushed my cheek, the scent of cherry. My mouth watered and my eyes drifted close. Damn him. Where was he last night? I forced my eyes to the screen.
He turned his head and peered at me. A grin spread across his face. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, sure, why do you ask?”
“You just muttered ‘unfair,’” he said. I narrowed my eyes while he chuckled. “Can we find out what he used?”
“Maybe not me, but Roger, he is a virology expert. Hell, he might have made the disease that decimated our people.” And wasn’t that a pleasant thought? I shuddered.
As discretely as possible, I leaned away from Marin. He followed. His breath whispered in my ear. “I bunked with Zanth yesterday. When you are ready to talk, you can find me there. Now you need to go eat.”
It was like he knew what I was thinking. I closed my eyes for a second. Relief made my knees weak. I was ever so grateful for the chair. Marin had enough of an ego. “Quit bossing me around.”
His mouth brushed my temple. “You like it when I tell you what to do.”
So true. The air thickened between us. I cleared my throat. “Be that as it may, Ace. Stop it.”
His eyes narrowed at the old nickname. I knew he hated it. That would be why I used it. Marin stepped back but still kneaded my shoulders. “Please, Elizabeth. You need food.”
I groaned and let my head fall forward. “Okay, I’ll eat in a minute. But I have to find out what Xade did. By the way, I found out something. I am much older than I thought.”
“What?” Marin’s hands stopped their miraculous massage to my dismay. “What do you mean?”
I filled him in on the information I’d gleaned about the tubes. It made sense. Xade had been playing god for centuries.