Zosma Read online

  Allister studied quantum physics at eight years old. A never-ending encyclopedia in his head contained information and occurrences unconfirmed by human scientists. For instance, he knew who built the great pyramids and it wasn’t the Egyptians. He knew Stonehenge was a gateway, not giant stones arranged in a circle. He thought college was about learning useless facts, but the two students’ interactions showed it was about growth and support, bonding with peers.

  Throw in high stakes, volatile personalities, superhuman powers, and voila, you had the Andromeda Project. The program where he’d anticipated character building exercises and a curriculum in line with his accelerated learning curve. His peers there had been Dorian Xander, Bridget Sparks, and her.

  Spit poured into his mouth faster than he could swallow. Leesa Delemar. Twenty-four. Lieutenant. Telekinetic. Deceased. The glowing picture from C20’s files captured the glitter in her cerulean eyes and the bounce in her chocolate tresses. At the beginning, she’d behaved as a trained death machine, her combat style calculated and murderous.

  He savored the thought of their first touch, how he’d melted her lifeless demeanor and stormed her emotional vault armed with charm. From those depths rose a spirited, compassionate, loving woman. More than a peer, and a friend, he missed what she represented: a traditional life, a potential family, an escape from his destiny. Mourning her death was awkward. Knowing she’d existed as a fabrication, the impossible-to-maintain dream of Nicolas Delemar, a man unwilling to let his dying daughter go. Leesa was Zosma in disguise.

  He should’ve known when his powers reacted to hers. Then duh, the Z-energy pulses. How had he not seen it?

  “Watch it, you piece of trash,” a jittery, suited man scolded. His downcast eyes rejected Allister’s dirty joggers and untied, battle-worn boots.

  If I’d cleaned up, Allister thought. Or paid better attention to his surroundings as he’d practically shouldered the man off the sidewalk.

  Glass and chrome structures joined the waking sun on the eastern horizon. New SoHo’s privilege shined with intricate architecture and blaring Cynque advertisements. “Life’s better when we’re Cynqued,” one read. Patrol posts took shape, and plump guards working their booths monitored incoming cars and pedestrians. Mount Sinai Hospital was positioned at the outermost edge, right across the first checkpoint.

  “Cynque?” the guard asked.

  Allister hid his wrist by his thigh, wondering whether to scan in and undo his elusion or—

  “Sir, Cynque please?”

  “Um, I... ” The line grew behind him. He scratched his chest, eyeing the crowded entrance, and pulled the hood to conceal himself more. He floundered to find an explanation for why he shouldn’t scan. “I-I need treatment, at the hospital. It’s an emergency.”

  “You don’t look like there’s anything wrong,” the guard replied.

  His light-headedness begged to differ.

  “There’s a hospital in Harlem for your kind.”

  “Is there a way to keep those lowlifes from coming down here?” a woman asked. Allister identified the African-American woman, dressed in diamonds and an orange charmeuse jumpsuit. Frustrated people of different shapes, sizes, and ethnicities shared her view, commiserating as a collective, shouting and shoving him aside. Allister staggered to the nearest bench.

  White light oozed from the hoodie’s pockets and he removed his hands. The two cosmic artifacts were booting up beneath knuckle length sleeves. At eye level, the transporter gems shined a vibrant green color, and active temporal energy broke down his atoms, creeping from his feet, to his knees, to his waist, to his neck.

  The merry-go-round: Old Manhattan, New SoHo, angry New Yorkers, whirled faster. Mouth clenched shut, he smothered vocalized agony and transported against his will.

  Mount Sinai Hospital, Border of New SoHo, New York

  “Ugh.” Allister twisted his neck on cold linoleum and sat up to massage a hammering headache. At the realization he’d transported to Nicolas Delemar’s hospital room, he sprang to his feet at breakneck speed. The Transporter gems were known for precision.

  C20’s classified files had pegged General Nicolas Delemar, the former head of the Andromeda Project, as “the vault” due to his invaluable knowledge.

  The general carried the burden of failure on his way to the grave. Responsible for the Andromeda Project’s inadequacy. Responsible for Zosma’s awakening. Responsible for Allister’s possession of the gems. Due to the acquisition of rich and powerful enemies, whoever set up Nicolas Delemar at Mt. Sinai knew he needed protection. No matter how hard the wheel of fortune spun, the prize would be death.

  He observed the sleeping man’s machine-assisted breathing in tempted silence, gauging whether U.S. government tucked him under those cotton sheets, or C20. The lowbrow grimace Nicolas had chosen when he shot Patrick Adams in the skull was tattooed in Allister’s memory forever. Blood rushed to his head. Face hot, neck veins swelled to the point of rupture, his skin stretched across his knuckles as he made a fist.

  “I’ve run through this moment in my head over and over, thinking about how I wanted to kill... ” He steadied his quaking voice. “I know my mom wouldn’t want me to, but you, you, don’t deserve mercy.” Allister released his fingertips from his palms’ captivity. “When I told Leesa what you did I promised her I’d let you live. I knew hurting you would... hurt her.” Nostrils flaring, he gripped the tubes pumping oxygen to the man’s lungs, liquids into his bloodstream and yelled in a whisper, “Are you listening to me? Wake up!”

  Rapid beeping indicated oxygen loss to Nicolas’s brain. The general gasped. Allister let go and clutched his heated chest. “I wouldn’t kill anyone,” he’d said to Celine in Morocco. Now he speculated whether his declaration had been made in faith or fear.

  Nicolas’s coughs poked holes in the silence. “Private Adams?” he sputtered, “What are you—? How long have I—?”

  Allister’s blood simmered, and he inched closer, straining to picture the distorted, smock-wearing demon as a human being. “Why’d you do it?”

  The general, a risen corpse sentenced to suffer, glared at Allister. “Because your father was a fool. He betrayed his country to help that stupid alien.”

  “You say one more thing about my dad and I swear—” Allister tore Nicolas from the white cocoon’s protection by the collar. “I’ll rip out whatever’s keeping you alive.”

  “Go on. Go on and do it. I’ll die knowing you destroyed Patrick Adams’s legacy.”

  Allister snarled. The fist returned, and raised to punish Nicolas’s mouth for its words.

  “Do. It.”

  He pulled the general close, glimpsing sagging skin and wrinkles in a mummified face. “I lost Zosma. If you can help, I’ll look for some self-control. Do you know where C20 is?”

  “What a fearless leader, just like Patty Cakes.” Violent coughs punished his sarcasm. “If he were half as loyal, he’d still be here.”

  “You do want to die,” Allister hissed through closed teeth and pushed him back.

  Nicolas settled onto the bed. “You don’t have it in you. Deep down you’re a self-centered coward, just like him. You grabbed the gems instead of saving your own mother.”

  “You’re a son of—”

  “Shut up, Adams,” the general barked, raising his hand. A round device equipped with a large red button dangled between his fingers. “I activate this, the feds come running. You’ll be blown to dust before you can inhale.” He set it on his lap. “I have a question. You were the last person to see my daughter alive. Did she die in peace?”

  The mention of Leesa lowered his shoulders and un-flexed his muscles. “Why do you care?” he asked. “You treated her like a caged monster.”

  “Like a caged monster!” Nicolas coughed up blood, wiped his hands on the comforter. “You naive shit. You have no idea what I sacrificed to keep Leesa alive.”

  “You’re right. I don’t know what you sacrificed, but I damn sure know who. Neight. My father.
My mother. The innocent people of Cumberland falls. And for what? Zosma woke up. The energy overloaded Leesa’s mind. She was killed or erased or... ”

  “Leesa was erased the day Neight merged her and that creature. I had to cage the monster inside her.” His cheeks shook as he delivered a plot-thickening line, “The directors agreed testing Z-energy was too dangerous after the pulse flattened Cumberland. They voted to lock it inside the Containment Center and Zosma’s mind in Leesa’s body. Keeping the energy separate kept Zosma dormant.”

  Allister swept hair from his brow and placed both hands on his hips. “You didn’t listen. You kept experimenting on yourself.”

  “Dr. Giro convinced me it was for the best.” He leaned back, running his fingers over heroin needle holes in his shriveled forearm. “The Z-energy did this to me. We tested human compatibility using gene therapy to grant access to its power. At 8 percent, it supercharged my cells. Made me strong. Resilient.” He made a loose fist. His tone wavered. “Then I got weak. Found out, supercharging... killed them faster. I was cycling through new cells at a rate I couldn’t sustain. My body gave up.”

  Nicolas’s aging accelerated. Not the answer he’d come for but worth the trip.

  The Z-energy was proprietary to the Uragonians, granting them power in various percentages depending on heritage. Decidedly, Z-energy was not for humanity, not for their cells or their bones or their limited mental imaginations. A source of magic that would, if given the chance, corrupt, corrode, and confuse the body’s basic processes.

  By some stroke of luck or subjection to the same gene therapy he wasn’t aware of, Allister had 25 percent access to the Z-energy of his own to use. His brutish ways and poor training produced the Z-energy’s un-aimed bursts, off-center beams, and the occasional tantrum over his skin with no significant result.

  “What about Zosma?” Allister asked.

  “Keep up, Adams. Shit, for someone so smart, you can be a dumbass. Dr. Giro wanted to experiment with Z-energy, so, he reset the Containment Center. Leesa’s energy access levels hit 100 percent. Their bond or the spell, whatever you want to call it, broke.”

  “He triggered Zosma’s awakening on purpose.”

  Nicolas gave him a sarcastic, double-thumbs up. “Near the end, Giro’s stupid rants stopped making sense. He said we couldn’t grasp Z-energy’s importance, went on some tangent about how this planet and its people need guidance. I was too sick for it to make sense, but here.” The general reached under the pillow, then held his Cynque in the air. “The password is Leesa. There’s a folder you’ll want to read through, a program called Hex Fourth.”

  Allister snatched the watch and studied Nicolas’s stiff upper lip and hateful eyes.

  “You think knowledge brings you closer to happiness. The more you know, the more miserable you become. That little boy who frolicked into my office fifteen years ago has been ravaged by betrayal and death, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” The general’s snickering turned to heaving.

  “I don’t care what you say about me. If you know where Dr. Giro is, tell me now so I can stop him.”

  “You don’t even know what you’re stopping.” Nicolas shrugged and took a turn for the delirious, activating the hospital bed’s panic button. “If you visit Belladonna’s grave, thank her for saving me. I suggest digging up the body. Make sure she’s actually there.”

  There was a buzzing outside the door. A Cynque scanning.

  “You were stalling,” Allister said, backing away from the bedside.

  “If I was stalling, they would’ve come a lot sooner.”

  A muffled voice carried betrayal through the door. “We know you’re in there, Allister. Hands up or we shoot on sight.”

  No delay for a plea or response, the door burst open and plasma weapon-armed CIA agents shuffled through the doorway. The leading agent blasted his rib.

  Allister toppled, screaming. An inferno spread through his side and over his body. Unable to complete a thought, move a muscle, or fathom recovery, he curled into something primeval. A bullet to the skull would have been mercy.

  Betwixt his anguished cries, he heard boots and a man’s deep voice utter a callous comment, “This is the second time you’ve ruined my vacation.” Hunter Steele lifted him high enough to land a steel-fisted punch to his face.

  Chapter Three

  Ulterior Motives

  Allister Adams

  CIA Satellite Facility, New SoHo, New York

  “Please state your name for the record,” a woman’s computer voice instructed.

  He blew air through his lips to take the edge off then stated, “Allister Patrick Adams.”

  Drenched in eerie green light, CIA’s interrogation room had Cynque surveillance in the fibers of its walls, while a two-way mirror hinted at important officials watching what transpired. Heavily armored American soldiers had arranged themselves in a staggered line around the three-hundred-square-foot room.

  He opted not to sneak a glimpse at his swollen face, nor did he dare touch the bandaged wound on his stomach.

  President Wesley DeVries stood across from him, arms folded tight and high. He’d fired off a list of ridiculous questions and his face scrunched in impatience for their answers. “We won’t get anything done like this, Mr. Adams.”

  Targeted red beams formed constellations on his body. Every gun trigger in sight was being stroked or pulled by an antsy finger or two. Allister cleared his phlegm-coated throat and said, “I’m not telling you anything as long as I’m a bullseye.”

  The president swiveled left, then right. “You heard him, stand down.”

  “Over my dead body,” Hunter said, his flexed biceps and twisted smirk pleading for action or impulse. “This kid’s a time bomb.”

  “I can hear you,” Allister replied.

  “That’s an order, Detective Steele.”

  The detective’s reluctant gesture sent the soldiers’ gun barrels from 90 to 45-degree angles.

  Memory took the reins and drove the horse and carriage back to a month ago. “Last time I saw her, we-we were in London.” Allister tugged at hair by the fistfuls. His voice wavered, a jumble of confidence and despair, “We were okay, then, and I swear, it was out of nowhere. The Z-energy took over her. A telekinetic storm ripped the Montage apart, and I knew a pulse was coming because she was... so hot... nuclear hot, like the sun.” He got up at a glacial pace. “You’re fishing.”

  President DeVries confronted Allister’s intimidating frame. “This is tough for you, I know.”

  “You know what’s tough? Believing you don’t already know what I’m about to tell you.” His foot tapped once, twice, three times. “We were in the thermosphere. The Transporter gems took us to the... yeah, she released the energy, and I got blown back to Earth.” He glared at the president. “You know the rest.”

  “The locals said they found you alone, incoherent,” President DeVries said and dropped his arms. “They also said you died on the way to the hospital.”

  “If I died, even for a split second, I wouldn’t have these.” He flashed the Transporter gems “My turn. Where’re my friends? Dorian? Bridget? Are you hunting them too?”

  “Your friends are safe.”

  “Wrong,” he replied, and tilted his head at Hunter. “Dorian said this asshole tried to kill him for no reason.”

  “Miscommunication in proper protocol for bringing you in, right, Detective Steele?”

  Hunter growled and waved, dismissing the accusation.

  Wesley continued, “I apologize on his behalf, moving on. You infiltrated a territory occupied by our soldiers and destroyed Captain Brandt’s computer. We were close to discovering crucial files to help us locate C20.”

  “Fake news. You weren’t close at all. I didn’t see anything in the database about C20’s new location, and I read the whooole thing.”

  “Impossible. There were at least a million files, and you were there for thirty minutes.”

  “I read every single o
ne!” Allister shouted. Multiple hands shuffled President DeVries behind the soldiers in formation. “I read them,” he said, softer. “That’s how I found General Delemar.”

  “Get out of my way.” President DeVries pushed through the group, drew in a deep breath, and took a step closer. “What else did you read?”

  “Stuff.”

  “Look, whether you accept it or not, we’re on the same team.”

  “Let me stop you there,” Allister said. “I agreed to come because you told me you wanted to help.”

  “I thought it was ‘cause you were crying on the floor like a bitch,” Hunter retorted, whacking a fellow soldier’s arm. “Right?”

  “We want to help,” President DeVries said. “Help you stop C20 before they take over the world.”

  “Wrong again. I need help stopping Dr. Giro before he experiments with Zosma’s power.” He turned to the windowless door and said, “Hear the difference? Yours is political, mine isn’t.”

  “You don’t have a choice. You violated the terms. Not to mention you’re a walking weapon of mass destruction, especially with the cosmic artifacts.”

  “Two months ago, the Andromeda Project fished me out of a coffee shop.” Allister jerked his head around and pointed at the president as he limped toward him. His adrenaline levels hit the ceiling, dousing his side’s throbbing pain in numbness. “My biggest problem was showing up on time and remembering to put the muffins out before the line got too long. You did this to me!”

  In rage and sorrow, he’d seized the president’s collar, holding him inches from the ground at eye level. Red, eye-socket-sized circles burned holes in his skull. Others followed, aimed at his lungs and spine.

  “Don’t shoot him. He’s not going to hurt me.” The president cupped his shaking hands and said in a soothing voice, “Allister, put me down.”