The Universe Parallel

  Shyamal smiled; he’d only ever fed on mortal human beings; this was a superhuman and if he was one of Taliesin’s Chosen Ones, it meant only one thing. ‘Immortals.’ His belly rumbled with relish.

  On-screen the anomaly in space opened wide and a blue, glowing orb came shooting out. The sphere was being drawn towards the tiny human by a celestial mist and, as the mist came over him, the human began to glow. At the same time the glowing sphere fell into darkness, but lost none of its momentum.

  ‘This is the Logos at work,’ Zeptu uttered, ‘we should not interfere.’

  Without a sideways glance, Shyamal punched Zeptu, and remained focused on the events unfolding on the screen before him.

  The glowing human cleared the mist and floated in the path of the oncoming planet, appearing to be asleep as their huge vessel began to rattle and shake once again.

  ‘There has been a sudden increase in the solar wind activity from the sun behind us,’ advised the weatherman viewing the readout of quantum activity in the area, ‘and we are being drawn along with the wind’s current towards the anomaly.’

  ‘Towards the anomaly, or the human?’ Shyamal asked.

  ‘What difference does it make?’ Zeptu asked. ‘We’ll burn out the engines if we don’t jump out of the stream now!’

  ‘Shut down the engines,’ Syhamal called, and looked to his weatherman to get his answer.

  ‘The wind appears to be pooling around the human, my Lord.’

  Shyamal’s eyes returned to the events unfolding on-screen. ‘Let’s see what he does.’

  The solar wind continued to build around the human and then shot out towards the approaching planet, slowing its pace like a ball trapped in a net.

  ‘The wind is encasing the planet,’ wheezed the weather officer in amazement, ‘forming an —’

  ‘— artificial atmosphere,’ Shyamal concluded, pleased. ‘And why would he bother doing that, if there was no life to sustain on that globe?’

  ‘I’m getting a massive reading on human life forms, from all over the planet,’ the radar officer advised.

  Zeptu was suddenly inspired by his Lord’s risk-taking. ‘Who would have thought that there would be life in the heart of the An-Tu-Im?’

  This quadrant of the galaxy had been named An-Tu-Im, ‘Heaven of Storms’, by the previous rulers due to the large amount of meteor fields, asteroids and black hole activity in the region. This one tiny galaxy known as Esh-mah was the only safe haven for light-years.

  ‘The perfect place to hide Utopia,’ Shyamal mused; he could almost taste those pineal fluids now, and how much sweeter and more life sustaining would they be when sucked from an immortal?

  The Yahweh eyed the human beacon on-screen as it flew off slowly and the huge planetoid followed obediently behind.

  ‘Do you think we might be biting off a bit more —’

  ‘Say it and I’ll kill you myself.’ Zeptu was cut short by Shyamal, and chose not to debate the issue further. ‘His DNA can be unbraided as easily as any other human being’s,’ Shyamal spoke up to advise all his crew. ‘A sonic pulse from the de-evolver will cut him down to size.’

  The crew thrummed their feet on the ground in a show of support for their Yahweh.

  ‘A planet-sized feast has been flown in especially for us.’ Shyamal found it ironic. ‘It seems that the famous motto of the White Lodge might have some credence after all … the universe always provides.’

  PART 1

  ESH-MAH ‘THE DIVINE INSIDE PLACE’

  1

  ESCAPE FROM ESPONISA

  When Jazmay awoke in darkness with the ground trembling beneath her, she wondered if she might be dreaming. If she was not imagining things, then the darkness meant that the laser bars of her containment cell were switched off — along with all the lighting and power in the detention level. Something else felt amiss. She reached down to find that the psychic shackle, which had kept her prisoner for years, had fallen from her ankle and lay defunct on the floor. ‘A miracle,’ she uttered, as exhilaration welled within her.

  She reached out to feel for the boy, who was still unconscious on the floor beside her.

  Fari Doon was not her son; she had lied to prevent them being separated following their capture by the Maladaan Secret Service four years ago. He’d only been six years old at the time and Jazmay shuddered to think what might have become of him had she not taken him under her wing.

  Rather than waste time waking him, she scooped Fari up and made for the void in the cell wall.

  She had walked this corridor many times and had no problem finding her way in the dark. Just short of the end of the cell block area, Jazmay tripped over a body and she fell onto the steel grate floor, elbows first, the weight of the lad she carried compounding her injury. ‘Ouch!’ she whispered, to get past the pain.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Fari woke upon impact.

  ‘Shhh!’ Jazmay warned, as the guard she shuffled away from began to stir.

  ‘What’s going on?’ The guard roused himself.

  As the man slowly got to his feet, Jazmay gripped Fari’s unshackled ankle to draw his attention to the missing restraint and then moved close to his ear to whisper, ‘We are free.’

  The boy needed no more prompting than this. Fari sprang to his feet and ran at the guard. He jumped up and snatched the night vision mask from the man’s head so that he might see his target better, and then served him an almighty punch in the jaw. The impact sent the guard hurtling into the wall at the opposite end of the corridor, where he fell to the floor and all was quiet for a second.

  ‘Fari Doon the thrice strong, I presume,’ said a voice in the darkness.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Jazmay demanded in a whisper, as Fari tossed her the night vision headset, which she pulled on.

  ‘They call me the hurricane,’ replied the big brawny blond fellow who had joined them in the corridor.

  ‘Wow, you’re Vadik Corentin!’ exclaimed Fari, knowing this man was the most feared and defiant of all the psychics, for it was said that he could summon the very elements of nature to do his bidding.

  ‘And you are Jazmay Cardea, the Phemorian shape-shifter.’ Vadik folded his arms and maintained a safe distance from her. ‘I’d offer to help you up, but I’m not prepared to lose my identity in the process.’

  ‘I don’t need your help.’ She got to her feet on her own.

  ‘I do believe that between the three of us we might stand some chance of escaping this joy-forsaken place,’ Vadik suggested.

  ‘Why should we trust you?’ Jazmay scoffed at the suggestion; as a Phemorian, she naturally didn’t like men, and she was wary of this man in particular.

  ‘Because I hate these MSS bastards as much as you do, and the enemy of my enemy is …’

  ‘… an ally,’ Fari concluded, excited to have the legend with them.

  As it would cause more trouble to object, Jazmay looked at the sealed metal door that blocked their escape route from the detention area. ‘First things first, how are we going to get this —’

  Fari suddenly went speeding past her to plough the full weight of his tiny form into the metal barrier, and although he made a mighty fine dent in the door, it did not cave in completely. ‘Aw …’ Fari slid to the floor defeated, ‘… strong door.’

  ‘Give me a go,’ Vadik suggested, motioning them to stand back against the wall.

  Jazmay watched closely as Vadik bowed his head to focus himself inward and, as he did, a wind began to whip about his head, stirring his blond hair — it appeared that the disturbance was arising from within the man’s clothes and escaping through his collar. The turbulence grew and yet remained swirling around Vadik’s body. He then drew himself up tall, eyed his target and hurled the raging mass of air at the doorway, whereby the metal gave way and the door went crashing across the room and into an office.

  ‘Cool!’ Fari exclaimed.

  ‘Shh.’ Jazmay reminded the lad they were trying to escape without attracting too much atten
tion.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Fari defended his small outburst. ‘Did you hear that collision?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure we just awoke the entire MSS,’ she hissed, ‘all the more reason to be quiet and not give our presence and position away.’

  Fari put a lid on his excitement, and nodded seriously.

  ‘I’ll lead.’ Jazmay gripped his hand and Fari took hold of Vadik’s hand in his free one. Jazmay drew a deep breath for courage and stepped into the corridor to make a beeline for the emergency staircase — the lifts would prove a useless route to the surface.

  Even after their explosive exit they appeared to be the only souls awake and their passage to the stairs was swift and uneventful. Thankfully the locks on the doors had automatically switched off during the blackout to prevent MSS staff from being trapped underground. The detention block containing all the psychic captives had remained locked, however — if those with ‘the Powers’ had all perished it would be very convenient. Well the cage is open now. Jazmay smiled to herself as she began to scale the stairs two at a time — it was twenty flights to the surface from here.

  ‘Do we have a plan?’ Vadik whispered his query as the stairwell was like a sound amplifier.

  ‘We’re going to borrow a transport from the MSS, and fly ourselves off this shit-hole planet.’ Jazmay picked up her pace.

  ‘You know how to fly MSS spacecraft?’ Vadik was astounded.

  ‘No,’ Jazmay replied, ‘but I will by the time we get to the launch pad … I just need to find me a pilot.’

  Jazmay could read an individual’s DNA upon making skin contact with them, and could then transform her own DNA to match, giving her access to her subject’s genetic memory, traits, skills and so forth. She also had a photographic memory and never forgot a genetic code once it had been memorised — hence Vadik’s hesitation to make skin contact with her.

  They had climbed eighteen floors, by Jazmay’s count, when the lights came on, and near blinded her.

  ‘Shit!’ Jazmay whipped the night vision goggles from her head to scale the last two flights with anxious haste. She grabbed for the exit door handle but found it locked. If the lights were on, then there were MSS agents conscious on this floor — all the major offices and the primary security and communications rooms were located here. ‘Things just got more complicated.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’ Vadik passed a hand over the electronic keypad for the door, whereupon a small bolt of electricity shot from his palm, shorting out the keypad. ‘Now try,’ Vadik suggested to Jazmay, who pressed down on the handle to find the door swung open.

  ‘Neat trick.’ Jazmay was inwardly pleased they’d let him tag along.

  Fortunately the exterior launch bay was at the opposite end of the complex to the offices, and although movement could be heard down the corridor to the right, they quickly made off in the opposite direction, where people were still in the land of Nod. Vadik took care of all the security doors en route and when they passed out of the building and onto the landing strip, the three long-time captives revelled in the rays of the rising sun.

  ‘The sun is bigger than I remember.’ Fari couldn’t drag his squinting eyes from it.

  ‘He’s right, it is bigger!’ Vadik found this most curious.

  ‘We don’t have time to star-gaze right now.’ Jazmay turned back to grab hold of Fari’s hand to speed up his pace.

  The vehicle Jazmay had her eye on was an MSS Interceptor Drop Ship, which was not as fast or as light as she would have liked, but it was the only craft that had ground crew passed out all around it — hopefully a pilot was among them.

  In the back of the drop ship, Jazmay found what she was looking for. ‘Yes!’ She knelt down beside the female pilot and took hold of her hand — moments later, the transformation was complete.

  Vadik removed the MSS pilot from the vessel and closed up the hatch door as Jazmay took the pilot seat. ‘Strap up, boys,’ she advised as she fired up the engine and launched them into the heavens.

  2

  BLACKOUT

  The room shook furiously as Zelimir Ronan awoke in utter blackness. It took a moment to recall where he was and what he’d been doing before unconsciousness had been thrust upon him. Once his memory alerted him to what had most likely caused him, his staff and his environs to black out at the same time, Ronan began to silently fume. ‘Is anyone else in here conscious?’

  ‘Is that you, Chief?’ whimpered a young male voice, some distance away.

  ‘Well of course it’s me,’ Ronan snapped. ‘Can’t you tell by how pissed off I sound? Who are you is what I want to know? Are you one of my field agents, or are you science division?’

  ‘I am science division, sir.’

  ‘Good, then maybe you can tell me what the fuck is going on?’ Ronan struggled to his feet as the building ceased to tremble. He’d really packed on the pounds lately, and getting angry wasn’t good for his heart, but that knowledge never deterred him. ‘Kestler assured us this stuff was safe!’

  Professor Eleazar Kestler was a physicist who specialised in electrodynamics and was widely regarded as one of the greatest scientific minds of their time. Kestler had also been a sleeper agent for the Maladaan Secret Service, and had, unbeknownst even to the professor himself, run tests on a stolen sample of a mysterious gaseous substance from the quarantine labs of the Astro-Marine Institute Explorer (AMIE) Project, which he’d had an extended visa to study. The unusual gas sample had been extracted from an anomaly on Oceane — a water planet in one of Maladaan’s neighbouring star systems. From initial observations, Eleazar Kestler had reported that each particle of this gas was capable of producing an infinite amount of power and thus it was hoped that this canister of gas represented the ultimate source of free energy for Maladaan … but all had not gone to plan.

  ‘I … I’m only fairly new to the service,’ the voice in the darkness replied. ‘I was just here to observe —’

  ‘Aw … for fuck’s sake, can I get a little light in here?’ Ronan appealed to the heavens. He’d never show it, but for the first time in a long time Ronan was scared — if he didn’t know what was going on, no one on the planet did. ‘We are supposed to be the last line of defence for Maladaan and it doesn’t look good when we’re left in the dark!’

  The lights came on and Chief Ronan was immediately appeased, as obviously someone was on the job. ‘That’s more like it.’ He resolved to handle this calmly, but as he looked around and saw the utter devastation of the bio-molecular quarantine lab before him, his anger was quashed by shock. The lab was now fully open to the observation room in which he stood and the two supposedly impenetrable shield windows between the rooms had shattered outward. As he viewed the large shards of glass around him, he could only be amazed that none of his unconscious staff appeared bloodied.

  Ronan’s eyes were drawn to the scientist who had witnessed the event along with him. The fellow, who didn’t look old enough to be out of school, let alone university, was creeping towards the damaged mechanism that had been intended to harness and extract energy from the MSS-acquired gaseous sample.

  Kestler had unwittingly escorted the stolen sample back with him when he’d left the AMIE project to return to Maladaan. MSS agents had met Kestler’s sole-occupant pod upon its touchdown in Maladaan’s capital, Esponisa, where they had taken possession of the sample. To avoid any possible security breach on Kestler’s behalf, Ronan had found it necessary to have the pod relaunched into space without extracting the scientist or having the pod refuelled.

  ‘What is your name and security clearance level, son?’ Ronan asked.

  ‘Telmo Dacre,’ the lad advised, ‘and minimal,’ he admitted, taking a step away from the epicentre of the trouble. ‘The truth be known, I shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Then how is it that you are here?’ Ronan was concerned about the security breach.

  ‘I helped develop the harnessing mechanism. Indirectly,’ Telmo uttered sarcastically under his breath, whereupon th
e chief gripped the lad around the throat.

  ‘Stop dicking around with my patience and tell me how you got in here!’

  ‘I’m sleeping with my mentor.’ Telmo nodded towards one of the unconscious scientists inside the lab. ‘She put forward my ideas for this project as hers,’ he squeezed out and Ronan let his grip loosen a little. ‘She figured she owed me, and so she got me in to see the grand ignition.’

  ‘Grand ignition?’ Ronan was gripping the lad tight again. ‘This does not appear at all grand to me!’

  ‘But …’ Telmo choked, the delicate features of his perfect face turning red as he waved his finger towards the epicentre.

  ‘But what?’ Ronan let go to give him a chance to explain.

  Telmo gasped in air, desperately trying to catch his breath — this man had not become the chief of the MSS by being patient. ‘The sample exploded before they got a chance to activate the system.’

  Ronan’s own memory served to confirm the claim; the last thing he recalled, his people were locking the gas trap into the power extractor, at which time the gas sample emitted a huge burst of blue-white electrified light and that was it.

  ‘There you are, Chief!’

  Ronan turned to find his 2IC, Phendi Norward, pushing his way past the refuse in the doorway, and he could not think of anyone he would have been more pleased to see.

  Despite the crisis, Norward appeared as fresh as a daisy, with his neatly pressed suit, slicked-back dark hair and shiny black shoes — he even smelt good.

  ‘Sorry it took so long to get the power back on, but a huge electromagnetic wave took out the planetary power grid so it’s been a matter of rebooting the system, station by station, grid by grid, starting with our grid, of course,’ Norward explained nonchalantly. ‘I needed power to get the doorways open.’

  The labs of the MSS were top security and programmed to lock closed if the power was tampered with.