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  Zosma

  ©2018 Jason Primrose. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, or photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the author.

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  Mascot Books

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  CPSIA Code: PRFRE0818A

  ISBN-13: 978-1-64307-185-5

  Zosma

  Jason Michael Primrose

  Author’s Note

  If you were born before the 90s, you were born into a world without global connectivity. A world where your reach was governed by proximity to those around you. Most dreams seemed impossible and those nearest and dearest told you so. This was the world where my parents (both in their twenties) met responsibility and adversity. This was the world where I, (in my youth and my teens) met self-imposed limitation and disconnection from process.

  My mother and father chose to join corporate life for medical insurance and job security and financial stability. And they stuck with it for their adult lives to support their children and their families. I don’t know where or what they would be if they could, but I can say what they do is not who they are. I’m the son of a poet and a DJ.

  I dreamt up this kid inside a fifth-grade classroom, literally. Allister (Or Jordan at the time), was born during my fifth-grade year inside of a spiral binder book called Dragon Wars. I was so obsessed with dragons and the world I’d created in those ten poorly illustrated pages, that from fifteen years old to twenty years old, I went on to write seven more books. The main characters had children and their children had children. They crossed galaxies and dimensions, discovered new solar systems. They battled corrupt kings, queens, and evil entities, and fought alongside ancient warriors, aliens, and gods.

  During those same teenage years and beyond, I have waged an everlasting battle with my true self, the inner nerd who believes in magic and aliens and that what we see is not what it seems. The truth of the matter is, the universe is so meticulously constructed, can it really operate solely by chance? I believe in catalysts, and in prophecies. I believe that aliens have visited Earth and changed the course of human history. I believe that aliens could still be here, helping us progress.

  It never occurred to me that if I continued to write, I’d get better. It never occurred to me that people didn’t achieve their goals overnight, that they worked tirelessly and to no end for a sliver of success. Success categorized by completion, not by fame, wealth, or some other asinine measurement imposed by others. My thoughts of being an author were swept away by normalcy and tradition and of course, my perceived inadequacy. In fighting that battle, I took a long hard detour into other industries; event planning, fashion, jewelry, technology, and entertainment. And during that time, I lost these handwritten stories.

  It was time to start over anyway.

  “Everything after page 100 has to go,” my editor said of my first 600-page reboot of the Dragon Wars manuscript. At 210,000 words, I thought I’d written the most epic piece of fiction ever. It was confusing. It didn’t have an arc. It had too many characters and an unrealistic point of view. I took her advice with an open heart. I knew she knew more than I did. She’d read thousands of books for content and quality. I had not.

  I started writing this series again four years ago when I found myself feeling caged behind other creatives, living in fear and limiting myself. Fear of my own power or fear of my own failure or fear of my own existence. Not surprisingly, my various jobs under or behind other creatives led to the acquisition of incredible knowledge that didn’t relate to writing, but did relate to the business of creating. So, while creating the story and characters is hella fun, I had to look at this as a business and build a systematic process for execution in order to bring the novel to life. (Hence my belief in fate and predestined paths.)

  I don’t believe that I chose this subject, nor these characters, nor this storyline. I believe that it chose me, initially during some fantastical dream in my sleep. It latched on to me, and imagined pieces of this story would come to me in classrooms, during conversations, at parties, and in the solitude of my room. I consider the universe known as “The Lost Children” inescapable at this point. And I can’t even promise that upon its completion it will go away. I may be compelled to write backstory and side stories and pre-stories. My motivation to finish is driven by madness, I think. Four years later, here we are!

  So, to my thank yous.

  Thank you to my parents and grandparents for their sacrifices. Particularly my mother’s, who, as perfect as she is, I learned the most from accepting the things that weren’t perfect about her. She’s a living example of a superhuman with super powers. Her powers include motherhood, super strength, compassion, understanding, being a badass, and teleporting around the world. To my grandmother, who worked oh so many jobs and endured an unfulfilling marriage to raise three beautiful daughters because that’s what was acceptable and right to do. To my father, who, despite our differences in our approach to life, shares my vast imagination, creativity, and unique mind. I hope reading this he is encouraged to write himself, as I know it’s something he loves, almost as much as he loves me.

  Thank you to my siblings. It was your transformation from rugrats to role models that inspired me to go on this journey. You have grown into incredible adults and when I began to see you for who you are, I realized we shared the urge to pave our own paths. I hope I can be an example for a reason to do so.

  Thank you to the backbones of our family, my cousins, aunts and great aunts, all of whom have followed and supported my sporadic and unconventional life with curiosity but not judgment, watching and waiting like they were viewing some soap opera for a dramatic outcome.

  (I’m laughing as I type this.)

  Thank you to my friends who helped me bring this to life, your personalities, your decisions, your triumphs, and your mistakes are in these pages. I observed many of you with such pride, watched you change and evolve into the wonderful parents, husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, professionals, entrepreneurs, and successful people that you are today.

  Thank you to my artist and his amazing team, whose talent was so magnificent he forced me to look at my writing and level up.

  Thank you to my editor for your blunt honesty and your patience. For your unwillingness to let me dig myself into a literary hole. For recognizing my moods even over the phone. For your encouragement and guidance. For your bright spirit and your over the water home. For your patience through my indecision.

  As you can see, I am surrounded by super humans.

  Preface

  Since a young age, I’ve been obsessed with exploring society’s intricacies. We live in a world that tells us who to be, how to act, how to feel, and what milestones we need to achieve and by when. We live in a world that tells us what our purpose is, without giving us the freedom to explore those essential life choices for ourselves. How many of us know who we truly are? How many of us are even trying to figure it out? Now on the flip side—how many of us are constantly judging others by our merits, imposing our thoughts/desires/opinions on their existence? I believe it’s this lack of understanding between people that is driving a wedge in our society.

  The journey to self-discovery is lifelong and we are all on it. To start down this path, I had to climb out of the box society told me to build around myself. Freed from some of my mental constraints and the dream of the world, I found the story for ZOSMA, which begins the Lost Children of Andromeda series. ZOSMA is more than a story, it
’s a message—Zosma represents the infinite power you have as an individual—“So long as you have the consciousness and the confidence to call on it.” It is the power people try to siphon from you for their own gain. They try to cut you off, and give you ONLY enough so you can function but not succeed, that 10 percent. But you can take it all back, it’s yours after all. You can have 100 percent of your energy and use it to be whatever you want.

  I hope that you read this novel with an open mind and an open heart. It is not my first work, but it is the first work I am sharing without fear. It is a child that I am sending out into the world to be accepted or rejected, instead of holding he or she close to my side. It will be loved or hated, befriended or be cast out, praised or shunned. This child, titled ZOSMA, can only be his or herself and nothing else. I have instilled my own confidence in this novel, so that regardless of the outcome, it will stand happy with itself for simply existing. It doesn’t need my overprotection. It needs criticism, it needs failure, it needs to learn so that it may grow. And I promise to grow with it.

  Twenty-four years later, a fully realized dream has come to life. The characters I created in elementary school, wrote about in high school, and hid away from the world in fear of my own potential, are born. Living on crisp, turntable pages and in vivid imagery, they feel so real to me. As real as friends. As real as family. As real as enemies. They make mistakes. They’re selfish. They’re scared. They’re confident, impulsive, loving, vengeful. They surprise and disappoint me. They ask for forgiveness. Don’t judge them too harshly for they are no different from you and me. Trying to survive on an Earth that has decided humanity’s time is at its end. Trying to determine what truths to believe and what truths to question. Maybe they look like something you’ve seen before, but I can assure you they’re not. These are the Lost Children of Andromeda.

  Chapter One

  Intrusion

  Allister Adams

  Marrakech, Morocco, 2052 A.D.

  Heavy breathing. Racing heartbeats. The intentional pitter-patter of people moving from place to place. No, moving closer to him.

  Allister Adams came to in a heap of sand, face up, every muscle throbbing, his brain included. He grunted and pushed himself onto his elbows as unfamiliar terrain and untrustworthy vision demanded his concentration. He blinked at an image of three identical buildings blending into one another and the darkness abound.

  Navy gloom thwarted moonlight from reaching the rooftops. Clustered together, the far from welcoming buildings defined themselves in rectangular shapes and varied shades of grey. They towered over Allister, as if demanding an explanation from him, the outsider.

  Turning toward the direction of the last step he’d heard, he squinted, suspicious of what lay beyond a stone wall’s decomposing edge.

  “Get up! Hands in the air!” someone shouted.

  The building showed its allegiance to the city by hiding the body that carried this robust and confident voice.

  “I’m getting there,” he mumbled. He couldn’t believe it worked. He’d completed a successful transport before, but it had never taken this long to recover from its physiological side-effects.

  Six simultaneous click-clacks and a collective, fearsome whirring confirmed new military weapon prototypes charging for action.

  “Hands in the air intruder!” the same voice shouted from somewhere above him.

  “Yeah, okay, give me a second!”

  Gun-toting soldiers slinked into view: behind opposite buildings, two waited for him to walk forward; a third stepped in front of him; a fourth emerged behind him. On the adjacent roof, a fifth and sixth aimed at him sniper-style. The double-barrel chrome weapons in sight wore prized core-reactor technology near the trigger.

  Their possession of the proprietary war tech doubled his heart rate and paused his sarcasm. He was incapable of tearing his concentration from the plasma energy building in the gun’s glass sphere to obey their request.

  “Those aren’t on full power, right?” he asked aloud. He needed the nausea to go away like now. The aches pulsed with less intensity, the fever subsided, and his body cooled. Better. He sat back on his heels, hands up, as instructed.

  The plasma bonfires, though contained, gave the muddy foreground a distinguishable glow. Arriving with the orange energy’s light were the details in the soldiers’ uniforms, their impatient expressions, and their enlarged, exaggerated shadows. The shadows passed over Allister in an effort toward intimidation. Little did they know, he was intimidated enough by the promise of the plasma’s ferocity. Still, he’d come for answers, and he’d leave with them.

  Dressed in a grass green uniform and matching beret, the lead soldier motioned the gun barrel skyward. “Hands higher, where I can see them. How’d you get in here?” he asked.

  “None of your business.”

  The soldier wouldn’t understand anyway. I transported, he thought, imagining the conversation play out. I transported here from the United States because I’m looking for an alien refugee named—

  “How?” the soldier demanded, voice now unsteady. His finger inched back on the trigger.

  One foot situated on the ground for support, Allister launched upward and said, “I think you heard me the first time.”

  Click. Snap. Boom. A plasma bolt seared the upper flesh on his back. He yelled out and tumbled over, scrambling to get air back into his lungs. The weapons were on full power.

  “Should’ve killed him,” the soldier behind him said. “Charge ‘em up and hit him again!”

  Allister shook away the stinging. Through clenched teeth, he seethed, “You might as well put your guns down.” An adrenaline rush refueled his gumption. Moving forward, he twisted sideways. Zoom. A bolt whistled past him. He dipped left. Zoom. He dodged right. Zoom. Triggers clicked faster. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. He ducked garish streams of boiling plasma, then spun out. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.

  A lone, lucky shot nicked him in the bicep. He cried out. Not fast enough, not nimble enough, he was distracted by the first wound’s pain. It had chased him, caught up, and kicked him behind both knees. One knee gave up and fell, pushing the sand beneath it outward. The other stayed at a ninety-degree angle, supporting his upper body’s hunched weight. Nostrils flaring, he reached his dry, cracked fingers around the opposite shoulder to touch his back. Allister glanced at the blood they collected, dragged it along the thigh of his joggers and chose to keep the insults and obscenities to himself.

  The lead soldier, out of arm’s reach, backed away to let the gun recharge but kept it pointed at the space between Allister’s eyes. Smoke, reeking of overheated metal, rose from its mouth.

  “He’s not slowing,” the one behind him said.

  “Hit. Him. Again,” commanded another, coming around the corner. “Superhuman or not, these were designed—”

  “To kill, I know, believe me, I know,” Allister said. “Those hurt like shit, but in case you haven’t noticed, they won’t kill me.”

  The lead soldier’s mouth twitched in recognition. “Akhrus,” he said, as a fist-led arm shot into the air bent at the elbow. “You know the law, American. Our borders are closed. I suggest you leave the way you came.”

  “Or what? Listen, I’m not going anywhere until I speak to—”

  Scattered click-clacks interrupted. Allister leapt to his feet, maneuvered in a burst of speed, wrapping an arm around the lead soldier’s neck. He wrenched the gun away, took aim, and let loose its firepower. The foundation holding the snipers at an elevated advantage caved, forcing them to evacuate their posts, while burying soldiers on the ground. He spun the man locked in his grip to face him, and kicked him in the chest so hard, he flew back unconscious.

  His menacing glare sent the last soldier stumbling away. “Princess Celine will make you pay,” he said, dropping the weapon.

  Good, at least I’m in the right place.

  Allister held onto his commanding stance for appearance’s sake. The orphaned gun’s energy charge dwindled and its afterglow
shrunk below his clenched jaw, flexed neck, and stretched shoulders. Staying attached to the man’s silhouette as it waded into the grey horizon became irrelevant. Irrelevant too, was pretending to ignore the lingering sensation where the initial bolt had hit him.

  His nerve faltered, and he gasped, wobbled, then took a step back to steady himself. Pain he couldn’t picture compelled him to caress the area, certain flames frolicked atop already scorched skin. Yes, his shirt’s fabric had been singed from existence, and his flesh remained in the same condition, tender, swollen, exposed, but there were no flames. His mother had warned him of his overactive imagination. More blood joined what had smeared and dried across his fingers the first time. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. Repeat. There was a pounding in his eardrums, while he desperately sought concentration to inspire his regenerative powers. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. Repeat.

  He ran a hand through his afro. The brown ringlets, a result of mixed African-American and Caucasian heritage and infrequent grooming, deposited sand back to its home, unwilling to bring them along the next leg of the journey.

  Marrakech, the Red City, had flourished as the Moroccan epicenter of merchant trade and melded cultures. Allister wandered its streets. As the wind tiptoed around him, it swept sand flecks between the abandoned civilization’s haunting echoes. Overturned, paint-stripped vehicles with blown out windows. Tattered sheets hung from clotheslines. Stone temples and infamous rose-colored buildings overrun by leafy vines, cork oaks, and olive trees. The country’s gem, suspended in tragedy.

  “This is Marrakech now.”

  He dusted the tan particles sticking to his bare arms and shoulders, then untied a bandanna from his left wrist. A government-issued device known as the Cynque watch was hidden beneath. “What’s Celine’s location, Cynque?” he asked it, and retied the bandanna around his neck.