Zosma Read online

  Learning what the U.S. government knew and combining efforts wasn’t the worst plan; he had a ten-thousand-piece puzzle on the table and no one to help him put it together. The idea of seeing Brandt’s smug face made his blood boil, and he was hot enough as it was.

  Allister recalled his first encounter with the captain, working as a barista at a small cafe in D.C. The gig was supposed to be temporary while he decided on a college or a career, and helped pay bills. After two years, it had become a bad habit. Day-to-day tardiness and lack of focus were roadblocks to productivity. The fat check Captain Brandt wrote the cafe’s owner weeks later explained his premature termination. Payment for setting Allister loose.

  In that section of D.C., people couldn’t loiter, or the soldiers took you in. He was close to getting picked up when Captain Brandt came to save the day and sell the dream. Any hard-up super human would be intrigued by a bundle of cash, a few choice words about saving humanity and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. The Andromeda Project was convinced Allister’s gifts (the ones his mother had told him to suppress and thus, were useless) would lead them to the Transporter gems. He passed two assessment tests and a field test with record-breaking scores. Next thing Allister knew, like a sucker, he was enrolled in the Andromeda Project. Their prized recruit. It turned out, Brandt, commissioned by Dr. Rabia Giro, wanted to use Allister’s gifts to lead C20 to the Transporter gems.

  Joke’s on them. His thumb rubbed the bump on the back of his hand. Irony. Taking a train, though he held the cosmic power to move through time and space. Depending on the perspective, he’d either been cheated out of his destiny or squished headfirst into it, on a path determined to tear his heart and soul to nothing. Power gained. Love lost. He bent his neck and let his head touch the window, gazing doe-eyed through translucent glass.

  “Next stop, El Jadida Station,” a male computer voice announced.

  El Jadida’s proximity to water had been a blessing and a curse. Being spared from drastic climate change across the North African region didn’t stop rising sea levels. Celine’s semiprecious stone walls were impressive, regardless of her distance from the city. He wondered if she’d be there to make sure he left and didn’t cause trouble. Or if he’d caused too much trouble and she never wanted to see him again. She would’ve made a good ally.

  She hates me for sure, he thought and crossed his arms. It was his own fault, behaving that way, knowing his powers weren’t holding up to their usual standards.

  The train had gone underground and rose up from the depths like the engine that could, riding parallel to the horizon. Evening arrived during the journey, filling the sky with a moody purple. He turned his wrist to reread the most recent Cynque message.

  Per their agreement, his service to the U.S. government was on pause, yet, like any other Cynqued individual, the device logged his movements. The message informed him he’d been downgraded from hero status to fugitive. Allister shuddered, the plasma burns on his body had made that clear. Fugitive was written in capital red letters next to his name. He bit his lower lip. It’d be impossible for him to travel in the United States, and if Morocco had implemented the Cynque scanning system, the moment he left the station, they’d attempt to restrain him and send him to the nearest deportation facility.

  “Cynqued ya, huh?” the toothless woman next to him squawked. “Heard dey bringin’ it here next. Won’t Cynque me. No, no, no. Don’ wanna be tracked.”

  Her words brought unwanted attention and he slouched lower in the seat.

  “Look at you.” She pointed. “You already shook!” A French roll fell to the train floor. She scooped it up, chortling, and cleaned it with her shawl.

  Passengers’ stiff bodies jerked as the train pulled to an abrupt stop at El Jadida railway station. Domestic travel guaranteed his smooth exit, and Allister stepped onto the main boulevard, realizing he had no idea where to go.

  El Jadida, Morocco

  In need of a shirt to replace the cloth fragments clinging to his biceps and waist, Allister meandered awning to awning through rain-soaked streets. In the outdoor market’s freshingly trendy selection he found a sleeveless light green top with white embroidery detail and a pope’s neckline.

  He backpedaled and asked, “How much?”

  The bearded young man cast a glassy look and observed Allister head to toe to head. Grunting in disapproval when he reached the frizzy, brown curls, he ripped the shirt and its hanger off the wire. “Closed,” he said.

  “Sir, I’d like to buy the shirt. How much?” Allister asked in Arabic. Shared complexion and adopting the native tongue worked opposite his favor.

  The merchant, who was not Cynqued, snatched the decorative cloth off the table and broke into irate mumbling under his breath. “American” flared up after a string of curse words disguised as harmless adjectives. Allister opened his mouth to protest the insults.

  “I trust this is sufficient,” a woman’s buttery voice offered. An open satchel of gold coins jingled as it plopped.

  “Hmph,” the merchant grumbled, fishing the balled-up linen from a packed bag and hurling it at him.

  Allister jumped back as he caught it, said, “Thanks,” then mumbled, “jerk.”

  Defense tankers polluted the pedestrian river flowing crowded intersection to crowded intersection. And their big wheels dwarfed the Moroccan soldiers next to them. The regime wore ill fitted uniforms, helmets, and reflective visors. Their semi-automatic rifles embodied the old-fashioned way of thwarting civilian and terrorist resistance.

  “Get moving, two minutes to be inside!” the soldiers commanded, leaking from their posts and into the streets.

  The stars showed up, refusing to wait for the merchants to dismantle their pop-up stores or the consumers to finish their shopping. Night stretched its hand and blanketed haggard stragglers scurrying to their Riad-style homes. Doors slammed. Shutters closed. Lockdown had begun.

  “Follow me,” the hooded woman said and took his wrist, hauling him to an alleyway. El Jadida’s patrol squad strutted along the cobblestone street, looking for curfew violators to punish. The two dipped farther into the shadows.

  “Is your tracking on?” she asked. Her rigid grip squeezed his carpal bones closer together than was comfortable.

  A nod toward superhuman strength. “Celine!” Allister’s heart did backflips. He threw his free arm around her. “You’re okay!”

  Neither prepared for the outburst, she stepped out of his grasp and he stuffed a hand in his jogger pockets. “Sorry,” he said and smoothed his hair. “It’s just, I’m alone here and I didn’t know where to go and... how’d you find me?”

  She removed the hood, then crouched to pluck a twig jammed in his bootlaces. “I have eyes everywhere.”

  Hours had passed. Allister lay awake in a rundown hostel, thinking about the voice he’d heard on the tram. The voice mimicked the phenomena he’d experienced while communicating through telepathy. He didn’t know any living telepaths, and Neight Caster, the highest probable candidate for performing a similar feat, had the deepest voice he’d ever heard.

  Celine examined her braids’ ends in a mounted oval mirror. They whittled to sand and blew to the other side of the room.

  “Still learning, huh?” he asked, peeking under his gauze. He found new skin and exhaled relief. “Me too.”

  “I am responsible for maintaining the walls around the other cities lest they flood,” she said. “It’s why I’ve dwelled in Marrakech alone.”

  “With great power comes great sacrifice,” a quote from the wise, purple alien, Neight Caster. She needed to concentrate. She needed peace. Another set of scales he’d tipped during his impromptu vacation.

  She wrenched herself from the dusty mirror, crossed her arms and saddled up by the bathroom door, rather than taking the spot next to his shirtless upper body. “Did you find anything?” she asked.

  “Yeah, some files. Pretty sure C20 survived. They’re not in the Middle East.” Allister sat up. “But I know the
y’re somewhere.”... tending to unfinished business, he thought. “I don’t think Detective Steele followed me.”

  If the paycheck was worth it, Hunter Steele was entitled to track his bounty to any country’s jurisdiction. That said, Celine had been pretty prescriptive about her territory and even if she hadn’t, her power spoke for itself.

  Allister’s jaw stretched. Consecutive yawn number five. An hour nap sandwiched between two seats on a train didn’t replenish enough stamina to go at his current pace. He dozed off at the height of their conversation.

  The Cynque’s hardware unfolded in his mind’s darkness. Navigating its software components, pinpointing essential features and functions, he found the logic board which held security override measures. He ought to use the brain stocked with his father’s superior intelligence in tough situations—but fighting gave him such an addictive rush.

  “What of your friend?” Celine asked.

  Her indignant face came into focus.

  “Nothing concrete,” he replied, alert, awake. Allister thought about what Dr. Giro wanted with the Z-energy. Zosma was the only living being in the universe with unlimited access to it, the doctor would need her to conduct research and/or experiments. “Wait a minute, Dr. Giro’s done testing before. On General Delemar.”

  “Who? What?”

  “General Nicholas Delemar. He founded the Andromeda Project. With my father.”

  Sleep wasn’t happening. Allister stormed to the bathroom, crumpled shirt in hand, and shoved open the door. If he was a fugitive, he was going to act like one. He wrestled the garment over his head. “Cynque, disable tracking system, access code: W3$L&YDV4!3$.” As the Cynque authorized the encryption, he squinted at a violet hair sprouting from the hairline.

  “Confirmed,” the device said. “Location services are disabled.”

  “You can’t leave. It’s the middle of the night,” she said and blocked him as he tried to exit.

  “I have to. Tell me where this plane is, I’ll fly it myself.”

  “Why do you need a plane? Why not use the cosmic power you’ve stolen?”

  He shouldered her as he passed. Two steps from the door handle, his voice raised, “I told you I don’t know how. And I didn’t steal them. I—never mind.” Allister sank to a squat. “I have to find General Delemar. He’s alive. Are you going to tell me where the plane is?”

  “Think about what you’re doing,” she said. Violet energy accumulated in her stern glare. The rickety building swayed under moving earth, and the mirror lost its grip on the nail, fell and crashed onto the desk.

  He exhaled, coercing anger’s flush to subside from his cheeks, then searched her face for cooperation. Celine flopped on the bed, hands pressed to her scalp. Broken shards weren’t the sole casualty in the miniature earthquake. Cries from other rooms made it known her emotional lapse hadn’t been contained. An air horn sounded. Footsteps climbed the clay stairs. The hostel’s manager yelled for tenants to flee in case of an aftershock.

  Arms spread out, she quivered. “Meet me where the dome touches the sea. There’s a private airstrip.”

  The manager unlocked the door and rammed it open. “What’re you doing, you stupid American?” he asked in Arabic. “Go, go!”

  Wind whistled behind him. Tiny bits of sand, spinning in circles where Celine had been, vanished through an open window.

  Detective Hunter Steele

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  “Good morning,” Hunter sang to a homeless couple sprawled on an apartment building porch. His leather trench fell right below the knees, which he gave thanks for in light of the conditions. He climbed over them and kicked the man on purpose.

  Sewage and urine plagued his senses up four flights of dank stairs. “Gross!” he exclaimed, stopping short. A football-sized rat shuffled past his feet. He punted it. It squealed.

  He entered the condemned building’s top floor and scoured the hall for an apartment number: 5-2, 5-3, 5-4...

  “Honey, I’m home!” he whooped as he pounded the flimsy door labeled 5-5. “Dorian Xander! Open up!” No noise drifted from the apartment, no Cynque broadcast, no streamed music, no AI communication, no sound.

  A door swung on its hinges and banged a wall. “Hey, shut the fuck up, asshole. My wife’s tryin’ to get my kid back to sleep,” said a male tenant as cadaverous as the building itself.

  “Get back in your shitty box, loser!” Hunter yelled. He brushed his jacket aside to flash the foot-long gun in its holster.

  The pale-skinned addict ran into the door frame on the way backward. “I don’t want no trouble. I just need quiet. I’m about to freak, man.”

  “Dorian, three seconds and I kick in this door. Three. Two. One and a half.”

  “He ain’t been here in days,” the neighbor said, and retired to the apartment and his child’s incessant bawling. “Shut that thing up or I’ll beat the piss outta both of ya!”

  Hunter heard a crash, a woman’s yelp, and a door slam. Poverty’s song. Domestic violence and crying children. Sounded like his house growing up. “Idiots. I should burn this place down,” he said, checking his pockets for a miniature explosive.

  The door’s warped wood mingled with the lock’s tarnished and rusted metal. Hunter lifted his foot and kicked it open. Four fingers ran along the entryway table in a standard occupation assessment. Dust levels hinted at an extended period of absence. He wiped the filth onto his pants and returned his hands to the trigger, spotting—

  Yellow bananas on the countertop, a hint of green stem. Their ripeness, evidence the squatter had been there within the day. “Who’d he rob to score these bad boys?” He separated one from the bunch and leaned on the kitchen island ledge to admire the grim sky. “God, this place sucks.”

  Los Angeles ravaged by fires, droughts, and earthquakes. New York’s population decimated in a flash freeze. Miami eradicated by tsunamis and super hurricanes. The government spent butt-loads to revive those markets and achieved no success. Meanwhile, Cincinnati and other cities like it were wastelands. Abandoned houses and cars, high-priced commodities, inescapable problems and socioeconomic statuses far below the poverty line. Cynque technology wasn’t integrated or enforced there. “Middle America,” neglected and officially left behind. If Dorian wanted a place to live in seclusion, he’d made the perfect choice.

  Hunter peeled the banana and took a bite. “The man, the myth, the legend,” he said, mouth full.

  Dorian Xander’s thin frame reflected in the window. He clung to his position adjacent the door, amber eyes bright and damp, elbows pressed inwards, fingers white from clenching the unused keys. Rain had given a shine to the nineteen-year-old’s jet-black locks and canvas backpack.

  Still chewing, Hunter said, “Don’t give me that look. You don’t live in a goddamn fortress.” He dropped the banana’s leftover peel and made his way to the foyer. Dorian jumped, fists up, wheezing through a mask resembling a dog’s muzzle.

  “Cool it. You answer my questions, you keep this shack. If you don’t.” He pulled out the square bomb, placed it on the counter, and patted it like an obedient dog. “The last time you heard from Allister Adams, go.”

  Dorian fumbled his keys onto the hook next to him, thumbed the activated Cynque he’d been issued, looked into the room’s corners. Nerves. Anxiety. Lying preparation technique Hunter called it. Do as much as possible, then spout a false answer. The observer, absorbed in distracting behaviors, was more inclined to believe you.

  “That a yes or no?” Hunter put his hands on his hip. “I read up on you, champ. What was it thirty-seven people you killed? Got my record beat. My goodness, a whole damn neighborhood, and on Christmas Eve. Those screams must be haunting.” Middle finger tapping the bomb’s activation button, he smiled. “You know I counted about twenty units on the way up. Nine occupied. Ah hell, what’s a few more notches on the belt anyway?”

  Dorian shook his head and waved his arms.

  “Oh, you really don’t talk? I thought Prez was screwi
ng with me.” He paced the kitchen. “Makes sense, sound powers and all.” The refrigerator swung open. He grabbed an aluminum water bottle, raised it as a toast and took a long swig. “Fine. I’ll give you the long and short of it. U.S. Gov is looking for our old friend C20. I know what you’re thinking, and no, Allister, the hero of heroes, didn’t beat them. They need him to though, or this world’s going to shit.”

  “How did you find me?” a computerized voice asked.

  “Smarty pants here uses the watch to communicate. Your parents would be so proud if you hadn’t... ahem.” Hunter finished the water, winked at him, and crumpled the container against the counter. “The gag is, you’re government property. You know that, right? We let you live in this dumpster because you don’t serve a purpose. Cynque records everything you say and do, every message you send and receive, every place you visit outside this disgusting hole.” He checked the bomb’s time and turned it, so Dorian could see. Five minutes. “See how that works, you ask a question, I answer. Now your turn. Go.”

  “Have not heard from him,” the device answered on Dorian’s behalf.

  Averted eyes equaled lies. Communication between close colleagues wouldn’t go radio silent. Most people kept in touch those days, it was harder not to. Hunter took steps to corner Dorian. “You sure he hasn’t come to you for friendly advice?”

  “Yes.”

  Denied a third time.

  Hunter dug into Dorian’s clavicle and lifted him up. “Best thing about my job is I can rip your head off and call it research.”

  The gothic-inspired teen squirmed, restraining his cries. “Let’s boogie playlist activated,” the speech assisting Cynque announced. Alternative music blared through a surround sound system.