MILO

Dead.

Dad was dead.

Tears trickled down his cheeks. Milo retched. He puked a yellowy substance across the floor of his cell. It produced an unbearable smell and the taste it left in his mouth was horrible.

Dead. Dad was dead.

His hands trembled. The woman who had killed him sat in the cell opposite him. A prison cell, shaped much like a box, but with glass-like, transparent walls. He had tried to stop her. She was too strong. Incredibly strong. She had punched Dad into a bloody and fleshy mess. Punch after punch, there had been no hesitation, only fury in her face. He shuddered and retched again. The images would not leave his mind. They would never.

Dad. But then Dad had transformed into Commander Meyer, an older Jacob Meyer. And Commander Jacob had transformed into a younger version of Dad. What had happened? A mind trick? But it would not change the fact that the man who had raised him all his life was dead. He had been his Dad no matter what any DNA test said.

Commander Meyer or Saif, or whatever he was named, had tricked him. All his life. Had it been a lie? Jacob took him under his wing, training him and recruiting him to his vanguard. Why? Disgusting.

So when Dad had slowly lost his mind it was Saif’s mind tricks that had turned him mad. Dad must have been under Saif’s control for a long time. No wonder he had started to crack at the seams. Milo felt the dread, his dad had tried to tell him. Some of the things he had slurred out were true. Some. That day when Dad ambushed him outside the Final Sight, Milo could have done more. A lot more. But he had been too focused on himself. Too selfish. Now Dad was dead.

Fists closed, Milo stood up. Like flipping a switch, but it did not flip. He stared at his closed hands.

“Come on!” Milo yelled.

Like a switch.

Nothing happened, except a throbbing pain at his temple as the vines clenched around his mind. Saif’s mind tricks held him back. His manifestation was beyond his reach. Milo leaned at the wall and slid down to the cold floor again.

What should he do? Without the lightning, without Dad. Even with it he had failed in protecting him. During the conflict he had been unable to find an external source of electricity. If he just could have torn open the blood deposit, it had to do something special if it was so difficult to use. Maybe it could have been enough to turn the fight. Or at least he would have been able to prove that the other deposits were real and not just figments of his imagination. Saif might as well have lied about that too.

Unfair. Damnit. Goddamnit!

His screams turned into sobbing.

So what now? Trapped in a prison cell being controlled by a mad man, Dad just died and his killer sat not more than ten meters away from him. What would be the next step? Revenge? Milo shook his head, chin dipped. No, Dad would not like that. He taught Milo to be a good, honest man. Revenge can only end in suffering and unnecessary violence. Was he angry? Yes, but revenge was not a solution. Life had to move on. Move forward. Always move forward. Milo wiped away another set of tears.

BETH

Caged by the madman. Again. Beth sat crouched in one of the cell’s four corners. A disgusting sense gnawed in her stomach. She felt so incredibly betrayed. And stupid. Why did she think she could take on Saif in the first place? The idea of revenge made one blind to other things.

The cell’s walls were transparent and it was not the only one. Milo sat in a similar cell opposite her. He looked completely out of hope. Like someone had wrung everything good from him. Like Saif. Just like Saif did to everybody. Saif destroyed the lives of everyone who tried to stop him and his mad plan. Nothing in the alien’s behavior had spoken of hostility towards humans. They had not fired upon the Au-delà. Yes, they had boarded. But who shot first? Humans. Stupid, war hungry humans. Saif’s idea of “stopping” the war would more likely incite it. Greedy, self-righteous bastard. And at what cost? Suffering and tortures. Mind controlling how many people? Beth’s face fell into her hands. Tears would not come, there were no more to shed. Her lips were chapped. She was drained and dehydrated.

Her eyes found Milo again. No, not Milo. Jonathan. Could it really be him? She would not trust Saif’s words. Never. The man always lied. An external DNA test was the only way. Also, the test had to be done a long way from Saif’s perverted power. Had the mental seeds been hidden in her mind ever since he shipped her away with the Au-delà? When she had stopped perceiving them she had just assumed they were gone Everything felt so hopeless.

Saif had kept running the facility to create more powered people. He must have found a way to stay young. Because he looked even younger than she could remember from their time in the facility. Or was he changing her perception of his appearance? She had too many questions and none of the answers.

The food tray lay untouched on the floor. She could not eat. The sick and disgusting feeling held her in its claws.

All was lost. Revenge would never be exacted. Her hands trembled. Saif had murdered her family and gotten away with it. Beth screamed, but it hurt, her throat being rough from all the crying.

-

“You are a peculiar one, Elizabeth,” Saif said.

Beth blinked awake. That disgusting, smooth voice. The perverted man stood outside her cell gloating. Why was he here again? To decree his noble plan of saving humanity? To claim himself the hero, again? Idiot. She would never see things as he did. What did he expect? For her to fall to her knees and kiss his boots in admiration of his hard work and sacrifice?

“Screw you,” Beth said, staring at him.

“Fine. Be like that,” Saif said.

“Why are you even here? You have won already,” Beth said.

Saif smiled. “Elizabeth, you are so naïve. We have not won yet. The aliens are still lurking out there. And what else could hide in the depth of space? I only do what is necessary.”

Beth turned away and stayed quiet. Saif would not get the satisfaction to see her weak.

“I am here to talk with you. There are a few things I would like to say and I hope you will listen,” Saif started. “Very well. I am sorry for the pain I have caused you. But you have to understand the lives of the many outweigh the few. But even so the suffering and sacrifice is unbearable. You will be one of the heroes of this legend.”

Beth frowned. “You have a deranged perspective on the world, mind pervert.”

Saif chuckled.

Ahh, the audacity and confidence of this man! Disgusting. The vines pulled a foreign thought into her bundle of thoughts. Her body turned around, facing Saif straight on, without her consent.

“Do you know why you are this strong? Why can you turn your skin into metal? Have you never questioned your strength?” Saif asked.

Did he want to bait her? To provoke her to anger. Beth bit down. She would not grant him it. She would fight the small battles even though the war was lost.

The vines constricted her mind and pulled yet another thought into the bundle.

Beth’s jaw muscles loosened, tongue moved. “I do not know. Some magical juice your scientists cooked up?”

Saif smiled. “Better. At least you tried. But you are wrong.”

“Explain it then. Use your superior intellect and try to dumb it down for an ordinary, stupid woman like me,” Beth said, trying to provoke him. Saif’s face did not move a muscle.

“I. I was the first one. Before I manifested there were none. But do not look down on the scientists initial trials. They really did their best and they had some hints on the needed genetic makeup. I was nothing, I barely existed in the system. A homeless kid with no family or friends. They pulled me in from the streets. They did things to me. Horrible things. Much like the treatment you received,” Saif said, pacing slowly around the prison hallway.

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“These scientists had no success. But then one day when the treatments were severely hard on me, I was convinced I was dying. How wrong I was. Suddenly I could see things no one else could. I could ride upon the minds of others. I could inject thoughts into them. I had manifested. I was unique, I was the first. But that is not all. The scientists tried and tried to create more of me. They duplicated the process on other kids, men and women but to no avail. My manifestation grew and I slowly realized their error. Then General Jacob, this was long before he became or I became Commander Jacob, he became in charge of the experimental facility. I looked into his mind like all the others, but I was not prepared for what I would find.”

Beth sighed. “Get to the point. You are bori…”

The vines pulled away the thoughts connected to the spoken sentence and choked them.

“Do not interrupt me,” Saif said. “I saw the aliens. Apparently some high seated individuals had sent out probes deep into space. Exactly five persons knew what those probes intercepted and the video feed they sent back. It was frightening. Then I searched through Jacob’s mind, to see how they were preparing in case the aliens decided to explore the probes’ origin. Nothing. They were doing nothing. I decided to act. I seized control of the facility and drove the research forward. The aliens looked so powerful that I thought humankind needed some accelerated evolution. I searched within my mind, I looked how it appeared before I manifested. What had happened in my brain for the power to awaken? I found out that if I increased the intensity and depth of certain very specific emotions and attributes in a person’s mind they would reach a critical level and manifest or break. Many fell, becoming deranged and broken. Useless. But a few manifested, becoming gods among men.”

He paused.

Beth sighed. “That was a god awful monologue. That is how you justify your actions? Stupid. You have not even met the aliens and you assume they are hostile. Why not prepare an exchange of peace?”

“That is my point. We have two options, either we sit still and wait for them to come to us and hope that they are a peaceful race. Or we prepare for the worst. There is nothing else we can do. You will feel quite stupid if they start to enslave us all and you had prepared nothing. Caught with your pants down and bam, humanity is no more. I am not accepting it,” Saif said, slowly pacing through the prison hallway. “We will not go quiet in the night.”

Beth straightened herself. “Who do you think opened fire first, when we encountered them in space? We did. I assume they could have blasted us to smithereens with ship-to-ship weapons, but they did not. They boarded our ship, yes, but only two of them. Two.”

“Notice how I did not interrupt you, doesn’t it feel nice to speak to the point? Elizabeth, I enjoy that you put your opinion on the table. Not just because you have firsthand experience, but also because of your educational background. Your observations are appreciated,” Saif said, stepping forward closer to the cell’s transparent wall. “This in combination with intelligence is what I seek in my soldiers,” Saif said.

Beth shivered at the thought of serving him.

“But you miss certain key aspects,” Saif said. “You cannot analyze their behavior with human behavior in mind. They are aliens, do not forget that. This could have been their plan all along, to plant one of their bodies in our ship and use it as a transponder to track the location to more of us. Who could know how they think? No clue, that is why I need to prepare for the worst possible outcome. Apocalypse. Do you want humanity to die out, already? We are so young.”

“If the aliens are so superior why have they not attacked Earth, any settled colony or any space city yet? Not even a single station to try us out? To see how hard we can hit back,” Beth said.

Saif took a seat in front of the cell’s transparent wall and leaned towards the glass. He was mere inches from her fingers. With fingers around his neck his life would end with a snap. She licked her lips, they were chapped and a drop of blood seeped out from their skin. Exhausted and dehydrated. She reached for the sweetness, but it would not come on her command. Saif’s perverted control.

“Fair point, Elizabeth,” Saif said. “But yet again, we cannot accurately predict their motivation or plan of action. Maybe they are busy fighting a war with another alien race. Or do something on a scale we cannot even comprehend. But after that they might turn their gaze upon us. Because it is pretty clear that they know we exist. And given their apparent advanced technological level I assume they know exactly where we are. They might just be busy.”

“A piece of garbage. That is what you truly are. I do not think you have done all this to save mankind,” Beth said, gesturing wide with open hands. “I think you enjoy the power over people. Feeling superior. Everyone doing what you command them to. I think you are a greedy, power hungry psychopath with only your own personal gain in focus,” Beth said.

A burning sensation throbbed through her head. Beth quickly reached up and massaged her left temple, but the headache did not abate. Vision blurred slightly, but she could still observe Saif. The man stared cold at her, wide open eyes and mouth set straight. He extended a trembling hand towards her.

“No. You are wrong. I will save as many as possible. That is the mission,” Saif said, the man was genuinely affected by her outburst. He must really believe that his cause was noble. How interesting.

“Think about what I have said. Do not sway away my opinion just because I have hurt you. Or that I have hurt a lot of people,” Saif said calmly, got up and walked out from the prison hallway.

The conviction behind Saif’s words were staggering. It was as if he followed a higher cause, believing it beyond reason. His path was fixed; a madman.

SAIF

His hands trembled. Sweat trickled down his brow. Laboured breathing. Saif closed his eyes and focused solely on breathing. In. Out. The memories in Elizabeth’s mind had triggered something in him, something he thought he had suppressed. He used the corridor wall to balance himself. God. The aliens haunted him. They really did. The sacrifices and hard work had to be enough.

“Get your shit together,” Saif whispered. He was alone in the corridor having willed away anyone in his vicinity. “You can win. We can win. Hurdles were made to be vaulted. Just vault.”

Elizabeth’s encounter had shown him a great many things about the aliens he had not known. He had assumed, based on the probes’ feed, that they were more advanced than humanity. But seeing their technology in action gave a certain perspective. It also looked like two distinct races instead of just one. The data gathered by the Au-delà and its science teams. But the memories had also shown that a manifestee had been able to not just go toe-to-toe with one but actually come up on top. How would the aliens think about them? That humans were not toyed with. Could they locate Earth? Probably. It had been time to leave for a while now, but he had waited for the Au-delà to return home ever since it turned around. He needed to know if the experiment was a success. Elizabeth needed to come with him and his people. The brother, Jonathan, would come too. They would serve well as soldiers.

“My vanguard, to me,” he thought.

Amanda phazed into the corridor through its opposite wall. Her brown, curly hair tied in a practical knot. Carl’s squarely build threw a shadow along the corridor as he came closer. He wore the same type of dark blue Navy fatigues and body armor.

“Vanguard. Update me,” Saif said, standing away from the wall, straight and proud.

Amanda stepped forward, Saif felt the confidence radiating in her mind. “The fleet is ready to leave. The Asian spearheads have arrived. The dreadnoughts and city builders are geared up. All hibernation pods are loaded. Shuttles and hardware checked through. We are go for launch.”

“Are we taking the Au-delà with us, sir? Its machines and robotics will be useful. Always good with extra city builders,” Carl said with a raspy, rough voice. Which was quite a contrast to Amanda’s silky smooth voice.

“Yes. I have already planted the seeds in their minds,” Saif said.

There was no practical reason to actually speak to his soldiers. It was both easier and faster to conjure the thoughts inside their minds. But he liked to converse. It made him feel human, which was refreshing. A sanity check of sorts. His vanguard didn’t have the mental seeds which he usually put in his minions. He had gained their trust and loyalty through hard work and dedication. What if his manifestation was crippled or they opposed something or someone that could suppress him? His vanguard would still follow him. Except Jonathan, but he was not a member any longer. Maybe after fifty or a hundred years of service he might be ripe for absolute, genuine loyalty.

“Amanda, how is Tom coming along?” Saif asked.

“Surviving. The doctors believe he will make a full recovery,” Amanda said.

“Good, good. He has potential. We will slowly pull him into the fold by friendship and mentorship,” Saif said. “Everyone has a purpose.”

Carl nodded in approval.

“Carl, do a double take on the preparations. Make sure everything is loaded and all ships ready. Amanda, look after the two siblings,” Saif said. “I will spend some time with Rachel.”

Amanda melted into the wall and disappeared. Carl went into a run to the other end of the corridor.

-

Jessica met Saif at the door as it slid aside. Her face set into a friendly welcome, her black hair cut into a fashionable style and her clothes contemporary.

“Good day, husband. How has your day been?” Jessica asked, stepping forward to embrace and kiss.

Saif sighed, waved a hand in front of him and sent a mental command. “Drop the act until you wake up next time.”

Jessica halted and hesitated for a moment. Her eyes went wide.

“What? Where am I?” Jessica asked, breathing rapidly and eyes darting in all directions.

“Shhh. Calm down, Jessica. You are Jessica Lindström, a famous starship engine engineer and you are my friend,” Saif whispered while pouring the mental command into the vines which constricted the woman’s mind. “Pack your bags. We are going for a trip,” Saif.

“Are you breaking everyone’s loops today? So, we are really leaving. Finally,” Rachel said, walking up to him. “You have been talking about leaving for years.”

“My love,” Saif said, met Rachel and kissed her.

A warmth spread inside him. A sense of real, genuine feelings.

“Maybe a bit of invigorating will do you good in these stressful times,” Rachel whispered into his ear.

A vibrating sensation spread through his body. Rejuvenating every vein, every artery. Muscles grew youthfully strong. The additional testerone made him feel mighty, a feeling you never grew tired of.Thoughts accelerated and he felt how the skin across his face grew taunter, younger, and even tender.

“Stop, I do not want to face space as a teenager,” Saif said, smiling.

Their embrace ended. The slight fatigue in Rachel’s face was apparent; her eyes duller and her movements slower, even her posture drooped.

“Jessica will pack all our things and transport them to the ship. Let’s eat something before leaving,” Saif said. “A final visit to the noodle bar?”

“Yes!” Rachel said.