“You know what? I’m sick of this crap. Why didn’t you people just help us out in the first place? Why did you let the Anu bomb us and destroy our world? What’s wrong with you?” Magda could feel tears building in her eyes and a sob stuck in her chest. She didn’t believe he was who he said he was, but she still felt anger at the Council of the Seventh House.
If they opposed the Anu, then why did they not protect humanity from the Anu’s destruction? In that moment, Magda didn’t think the council was any better than the Anu.
“It is against the Prime Directive, dear Magda. Please, focus. You must contact Cassie now.”
“And talking to me here, now. This isn’t against your Prime Directive?”
“We cannot take direct aggressive action. We can advise, but we cannot intervene.”
“Whatever,” she said, turning away. She was finished with this messed-up simulation. A tear ran down her cheek, and she wiped it away with her wet hand. She slogged to the other side of the pool and climbed out, dripping on the tile.
She picked up her towel to wipe her face, and when she looked up again, Michael stood right in front of her. She jumped then narrowed her eyebrows at him.
“What?” she snapped. “I’m done with you. Go away.”
He swooped in quickly and pulled her against his body, pressing his lips to hers. She sucked a sharp breath into her lungs before his tongue entered her mouth. He tasted so sweet and fresh. The sensation of his body against hers and his tongue in her mouth filled her with budding desire. She wanted to push away, but didn’t. In that moment, the world and all realities stood still.
When he let her go, she looked at him, breathing heavily with a grain of contempt in her belly. She pressed her hand to her forehead, trying to silence her chaotic thoughts. She had to focus on what she knew was real if she wanted to gain control again.
“How am I supposed to contact Cassie?” she asked. She’d never done anything like it before.
“Just will it to be so, and you will. You can contact anyone with the slightest telepathic ability.”
She raised an eyebrow. “This is nuts,” she said, wrapping the towel around her waist. “I have to get back to Emilia. She’ll be worried with all the crazy ones and zeros and all. She’ll think I’m in trouble.”
“She can’t see me. She can’t see us.”
“Why?”
“As soon as I came here, I took over control of the manifestation. In my domain, I require privacy.”
“Okay. Well, that’s a comfort,” she said sarcastically.
“Magdalena, just contact your friend. You will find it is simple once you try. Trust me, dear girl. I will visit you again.”
In a flash of white feathers, he vanished.
Chapter 3
Magdalena blinked, looking at the space that Michael had just occupied. She heaved a sigh and turned on her heel toward the deck chairs. The sun in her virtual reality still shone down on her poolside retreat with a warm glow. She sat and leaned back, trying to relax. This was her simulation. Why had she lost control?
Grimacing at herself, she crossed her arms and closed her eyes, checking all her mental checklists. When Magda had been learning The Program back in the dome, it had become second nature. Working with her brother, she’d learned to hack behind the parts of The Program that Pyramid Corp wanted her to see. With that knowledge, she’d also learned a series of mental maintenance checks that she could run through almost like software inside her mind.
She went down as far into her subconscious as she was able to go, checking mental files as she went. There was a certain level of mind she could no longer access without being asleep. Once she reached that depth, she pulled back, having found no bugs in her connection with The Program. Maybe this was on Emilia’s hardware end and she wouldn’t have a way of knowing until she phased out.
Opening her eyes, she gazed out on the waters of her crystal-blue swimming pool. It was such a shame her day had been wasted on tech checks. The conversation with the hologram that called itself Michael played through her mind. Her day of fun in the sun had already been ruined. There was obviously some kind of virus or error in the system. The only thing left to do was to report back to Emilia.
She considered phasing out for a moment, but hesitated. Part of Michael’s argument seemed so rational. Could it be possible he was real? She hated to think she’d just been visited by a member of the fabled council while in a bathing suit. Not only that, but also she’d kissed him! And he had kissed her. Her face burned hot as the blood rushed to her cheeks.
If there was even a slight possibility that he was the real deal, she had to attempt to contact Cassie to deliver the message. Cassie might have a better idea of what to make of his presence. She thought about it for a moment and decided that if she could contact Cassie, then Michael was real.
She closed her eyes again and took herself into a relaxed mental state similar to the one she used to enter The Program. Her breaths grew slow and long as her mind spiraled forward into the depths of her subconscious. She focused on Cassie, feeling her consciousness leap over the miles between San Diego and Denver. She pictured Cassie in great detail, and her friend snapped into focus.
Magdalena could sense that the picture in front of her was real. She could see Cassie as if she were standing right there. She didn’t know what to say or do. Cassie was riding a bus with Rafe at the steering wheel. A few other shifters and humans sat in the seats around her. There was a Beastie Boys song on the stereo, and Rafe had a big smile on his face.
Magda grew her awareness closer to Cassie until she was right next to Cassie’s ear. “Hey, Cassie. It’s me, Magdalena.”
Cassie shot up from her seat and looked around. Magda nearly flew out of her meditation but kept herself focused on Cassie. Cassie looked around, trying to understand where the words had come from.
“Cassie, listen.”
Magdalena watched the older girl sit back in the bus chair and close her eyes. Suddenly the two of them were in a separate place, white light all around them. Magda struggled to keep her focus as Cassandra stood before her in astral form.
“Hey,” Magdalena said, at a loss for words.
“What is it, Magda? I didn’t know you could astral travel.”
“I can’t. Well, I guess I can. I didn’t think I could. This is weird.”
“Are you in The Program?”
“Yeah. I’m in Emilia’s terminal. This is going to sound crazy, but I got visited today by a simulation that claimed to be a member of the Council of the Seventh House.”
Cassie’s eyes grew wide, and her hand went to her mouth. “What did he say?”
“He told me to tell you to come home. The Anu are planning an attack on the compound, and we won’t survive it without you.”
“We storm the Denver dome in the morning,” Cassie said, considering.
“I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me,” Magda said apologetically. She didn’t want her glitch to be the reason that Cassie and Rafe weren’t able to get the kids out of the dome. “But he told me I could contact you. I had no idea I could do this.”
“Yes. I believe it was real. I have never had direct contact with a member of the council, but I have been contacted by them indirectly. If they offer guidance, it is imperative that we follow it.”
“What about the kids?” The idea of those kids, kids like herself, being held for another second inside the dome made her stomach ache.
“Did he give you any idea when the attack might happen?”
“No. He just said to come home. ASAP.”
“I see. I will speak with Rafe. Thank you for contacting me, Magda. You’ve done well.”
Chapter 4
Magda pulled the virtual reality helmet off her head and blinked. Emilia stood over her, watching as Magdalena came back to full awareness. Emilia’s hovering annoyed Magda, so she slipped out of the chair and out of Emilia’s hover zone.
“What happened in there?” Emil
ia asked.
“The weirdest shit I’ve ever experienced in my life. Well, aside from the whole ‘end of the world’ thing.”
“What?”
“I was visited by an alien overlord, whom I kissed, and then astral traveled to Denver and spoke with Cassie,” Magda said matter-of-factly as she stretched the stiffness from her body.
“Huh? What are you talking about, Magda?” Emilia looked confounded, which made Magda smirk. Confusing the engineering genius was entertaining.
“It’s too complicated to explain,” she said, her smile growing into her eyes.
“I need you to fill out a report.” Emilia turned to pull a clipboard and pencil from her cluttered desk.
“Can’t,” Magdalena said as she walked toward the door.
“Magda. It’s important. Rafe’s rules,” Emilia whined.
“Rafe will know. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Magdalena gripped the doorknob.
“You’re going to get me in trouble, Magda!” Emilia shouted after her as she left the workshop. Magda didn’t care about rules. She would never have mastered hacking The Program if she cared about rules. Magda walked through the rows of mobile homes and tents that made up the growing town of New San Diego. Someone had started calling it that a few months ago, after the zombie attack, and it had kind of stuck.
Cooks spread the afternoon meal across long folding tables. Lines of shifters and human kids marched toward the food. Magda cut in line and grabbed a ripe apple from a basket. Apples were rare this far south. The dragons had been flying north to collect them from the vast, untended orchards in Washington State. She hadn’t had an apple in over five years. One of the cooks grunted at her, but she just air-kissed the raccoon shifter and trotted away from the noise of the camp.
Magda liked to keep to herself. Being a dome kid made her stand out among the shifters in New San Diego. The camp had been settled by them, until Cassie brought two busloads of dome kids into town. Some of the girls had babies already, but Magda had been lucky enough to avoid the breeding programs within the dome.
If Cassie and Rafe hadn’t rescued them, there was no telling what would have happened to those girls or their babies. Magda climbed the steps of her mobile home, biting into the fresh, ripe apple. She opened the door and went inside. She’d been lucky to get a house with nice furniture, even if she did have to share it with two moms and their infants.
She took another bite of apple, staring at the wall where a television had been. She so missed TV. They used to let the kids watch old media inside the dome, but they didn’t have anything like that out in the world. Magda heard a high-pitched cry and the cooing of the baby’s mother coming from one of the bedrooms.
Emily entered the living room, bobbing up and down with her baby on her shoulder. “Hi, Magda,” Emily said wearily. No one in the house had slept properly for months. Magda had a mattress set and bed, which was a great deal more than a lot of residents. It made up for the crying and baby-poo smell that often permeated the house.
“Hey, Emily. How’s little Charlie today?”
“Fussy.”
Emily was only eighteen, like Magda. She and their other roommate, Quinn, both had little ones. Every time Magda was in the room with one of the babies, she was so glad Pyramid Corp had never chosen to breed her. She liked kids, but she had no idea how the young women were dealing with motherhood at their age. Emily put little Charlie down on the floor on a clean blanket. At six months old, the baby was pretty big.
Magda watched Charlie roll over on his back and then slowly maneuver himself to sitting. From the sitting position, he gripped the side of the couch where his mom sat and began to pull himself up to his feet. Magda looked on in shock.
“Wow. Should he be able to do that?” she asked Emily.
“I don’t know. I was surprised, too. The nurse gave me a worn copy of What to Expect in the First Year, and standing at six months is pretty advanced.”
Magda and Emily watched little Charlie bounce at the knee as he giggled at his mom. Emily smiled down at him and patted his back. The little boy looked away from his mom toward Magda across the room. That’s when he took an unaided step away from the couch. His mom gasped, and Magda’s mouth dropped open.
“Holy shit!” Magda exclaimed.
“Oh, my God. The nurse won’t believe this either.”
“He totally shouldn’t be able to do that. Should he?”
“No. Not for another six months or so.”
Emily swooped in and picked up her son, holding him tightly to her chest. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” Emily said. “I don’t want the shifters to turn on us.”
“Of course,” Magda said, her eyes still wide with shock. Emily went to her room with the baby, leaving Magda alone with her thoughts.
The babies were hybrids, part human and part alien. The Anu had used the domes as giant training grounds where they trained, mutated, and bred the human children. Many boys, like her brother, didn’t make it out alive after the genetic experiments failed. Girls like Emily had carried hybrid babies. Given that the Anu had destroyed Earth and mutated all the survivors, Emily had a good reason to be worried. She loved her baby, as any mother would, but the fact remained, all the hybrid babies were part Anu.
Was that why Charlie could walk at six months old? If he could walk so early, what else would he be capable of later in life?
Chapter 5
Magda settled in for the night, but the sound of babies crying drove her out of the house. Walking through the compound, she watched the flames of campfires glow outside the tents of the many shifters who lived in New San Diego.
Rafe had done a good job getting shelter for the growing population of people who lived there, but conditions were still not ideal for many.
Magda circled around the gardens behind the big farmhouse and traveled along the fence line along the border. Her interaction with Michael would not leave her. She’d thought he was a projection from her subconscious—her ideal man, created in the farthest reaches of her mind. But Michael had proven he was what he claimed to be, a member of the Council of the Seventh House.
Magda still couldn’t believe that a member of the council had contacted her. The only other person she knew who’d had contact with them was Circe, the witch dragon-rider.
Scanning the darkened windows of the farmhouse, she wondered if Circe was still awake or if it was one of those nights when the witches chanted at the moon, or whatever they did.
Turning toward the smaller outbuildings, Magda spotted a light on in Emilia’s workroom. Too amped up to sleep, she made her way to the engineer’s shop.
After rapping her knuckles on the door, she heard Emilia’s soft voice invite her inside. Magda opened the door and found Emilia bent over a pile of electronics, her Goth witch girlfriend, Brigid, sitting off to the side, reading a five-year-old copy of Rolling Stone.
Emilia turned to Magda, magnifying glasses making her eyes look ridiculously large. “Magda, just the girl I wanted to see.”
Magda crossed the room and looked down at what Emilia had been working on. It looked like a Bluetooth connected to a one-lens pair of eyeglasses.
“What is that?”
“This is a portable Program headset,” she said proudly, her voice animated.
“You’re kidding.” Magda picked up the device and inspected it. “How does it work?”
“Slip that part over your ear, and put that part over your eye.” Emilia helped Magda place the device around her head.
“So I can enter The Program anywhere? What about the terminal?”
“Ah. I’ve created a portable terminal as well. You put it in your pocket, and it connects wirelessly to the headset.”
Emilia handed her a black box the size of a smartphone. “Just flip that switch when you want to turn it on. It takes a minute to boot up.”
“I’m impressed.”
“All those years of scavenging alien tech paid off,” Brigid said flatly.
“I’
ll say. This is more advanced than they had in the dome.” Magda flipped the switch on the box.
“Not really. They needed you tethered to their huge terminals to monitor you, I’d guess. Plus, they put a lot of people through The Program. This is an individual terminal. There is plenty of processing power for that.”
“Wow. This is amazing. Can I try it out?”
“Just focus on entering, and you will enter. I’d suggest sitting down.”
Magda sat on the old dentist’s chair she used to enter The Program and lay back, closing her eyes and focusing.
A moment later, she was enveloped in darkness. The next thing she saw was Michael’s face looming over her.
“Your friends are too late. You need to go.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
They stood in a bright plain of white light all around. Michael wore a white tunic with long sleeves that came to his bare feet. His head was covered in a hood, but his blazing violet eyes and strong chin were unmistakable, and white wings rose impressively from his back. “The Anu are coming. They will attack at dawn. You must leave this place.”
“What about all these people? There are, like, three hundred people in this compound. What am I supposed to tell them?”
“Tell them whatever you need to get them to listen.”
“Michael. Why me? I don’t have any sway here. I’m just a dome kid who’s good at The Program.”
“So was Cassie. Look at her now. You create your own reality, Magda. Don’t doubt yourself.”
“Yeah. I so created being stuck in a dome for five years and having evil aliens take over my planet.” She snorted and put her hands on her hips.
He just looked at her. The expression in his eyes said, “No shit, you totally did.” Magda frowned. She didn’t want to believe this metaphysical mumbo jumbo, even if it was coming from an alien overlord.
“Suppose I tell Circe and Xavier about this impending attack. What then? Where are we supposed to go?”
“Go north. I’ll give you more information later.”