Sweat beads roll down my nose. The feather hovers in midair, suspended a foot above the coffee table. My hands tremble as my entire world focuses on that little white feather. It’s short and fluffy, the kind you would stuff a down pillow with.
“Very impressive.” Says Ashley, slipping her hand onto my thigh and squeezing.
Her touch pops my concentration and the feather drops. White fluff floating to the coffee table.
“Yeah, bloody impressive mate. Crikey, you’re a real Olympic legend, aren’t ya?” Says Baz, heading for the door with his protein shake. “Off to the gym, smell ya cunts later.”
I know he means it as a compliment, but the jab stings. Not the sarcasm, that’s nothing new. Whatever radioactive squirrel gave humanity this power did not divvy it up evenly. Baz, my best friend, scored a zero out of twenty on every Extra Sensory Perception -ESP- test we took.
The term includes all kinds of quirks from the relatively common telepathy, to clairvoyance, or the rarest of quirks, precognition. Other ESP abilities fall into the category as well, most commonly telekinesis. From our first day of high school to last week when I maxed out the scale during our college midterms. 20/20. That score left me feeling nothing but guilt. Since it's a lie. The test was administered to me privately by Dr. TJ Hooker. My academic advisor and the scientist in charge of my second scholarship. Once a week Dr. TJ, as he prefers to be called, hooks me up to a hundred electrodes and runs diagnostics or brain scans while I lift feathers. My personal record is three at a time, roughly .02 grams. Though that was in an MRI machine and the magnets might have supercharged my powers.
So Baz is right, telekinesis is completely worthless. A penny is 2.5 grams, thirteen times heavier than what I can lift, and before you go and say copper is metal and metal is dense, a pencil is 6 grams. I’m literally too weak to lift a pencil, forget about a finger. Can’t even bend a single spring in my pistol either. Still, it got me a scholarship which is how I’m paying for the apartment Baz and I share. Without my odd ability we’d be forced into the freshman dorms, six men crammed into one bathroom closet. I shudder just thinking about it. The door slams behind Baz, not his fault. This apartment has seen a steady occupation of college students and the door is crooked, as if some drunk coed tried to sit on it during a superbowl sunday.
“Don’t listen to him.” Said Ashley, resting her head on my shoulder. “You know he’s jealous.”
“Yep, don’t need to be empathic to guess that.” I mutter, wiping the sweat from my face.
She let go of my thigh, rising from the couch we’re on. Her lips find my cheek, leaving a residue there. Probably red lipgloss to match her nails.
“Just keep practicing. These powers only showed up a couple years ago, so who knows. Maybe ten years from now you’ll be flying passenger airplanes.”
I crack a smile. Ashley always knows how to make me laugh, a perk of being empathic. She’s the best thing to ever happen to me, an old friend I finally found the balls to ask out after Baz badgered me for a year. Now we’ve been dating for six months.
“Hey Ash, I’m glad you’re in my life.”
Her hand tenses, squeezing my thigh.
“Yeah babe, me too.” She says, concealing her Australian accent.
Both their parents work for my dad’s company, which is how they’re both in America. Part of Warp Gate Freight LLC’s efforts to secure its future. When Australia shut down entirely for the virus, a number of children were given the opportunity to attend school in America. As cousins Baz and Ashley were allowed to live under the same roof, it also helped that Baz’s old man was the Chief Financial Officer for the Australian branch of WGF llc’s operations. So those two foreign exchange students ended up staying at my house since dad was the owner and CEO of the company. Nepotism at its finest. Wish I could have gotten some of that. For me, it was straight A’s or you were grounded; or you bought your way out. Dad was interesting like that, proscribing a financial value to everything. Take ten minutes pooping? Well, that was a drop in your net worth. Ten minutes compounded over the next sixty years, which was somehow three hundred years.
Maybe dad’s math was why we were in debt.
I bit my tongue. That joke wasn’t true, not even close. Someone was embezzling funds from WGF by the millions and hiding it well. Three audits all said the same thing, we were profitable, yet falling deeper into the red. All shipments were tracked on both sides with remote cameras and third party investigators. Someone inside our company was playing the clown and burning half a million dollars each year.
Ashley sensed me tensing and stood, correctly guessing I wanted a minute to myself. Calculations ran through my mind weighing the different classes and test scores. This would be another year I scored straight A’s. If I kept up my grades I might be able to get a job at the IRS and get the resources necessary to track down the embezzlers. A year and a half, that’s all it would take, then I could take over the company as the American CFO. Ashley and I could settle down then, have a few kids…
Of course, that assumed the business survived til then. Covid really did a number on the finances. Shipping lanes shut down for months. We had to take out loans to stay afloat, a cool hundred million dollars of debt. My double scholarship for grades and telekinesis won’t cover that. Hell, it won’t cover the interest for a month.
“Sorry Ash, I’m just tired after midterms. Bet it's the same for Baz.”
She closed the cupboard and comes to stand behind me, scratching my scalp with red acrylic nails. So nice they send tingles down my spine. How she finds the time to be so well put together is beyond me.
“How about you take a nap while I run off to the store. That way I can wake you up with some hot buns.”
I snort, handing over my credit card. Finally, something the scholarship will cover.
“Sounds amazing.” I say, already drooling.
She pats my head and exits, careful to shut the still open door. Footsteps fading as she walks to the left, old walls creaking with her passing. If it weren’t so cheap to live in these old dorms I would move, but Baz isn’t contributing to rent so we have to live somewhere on my scholarship alone. The floor above me creaks as if Ashley’s heading for the roof and not downstairs to the parking lot. That’s odd. I wipe my face with a napkin, getting rid of the feather sweat and residue of Ashley’s kiss. I’m tempted to leave it, keep the reminder of her affection. But that’s how you get cooties.
The napkin wipes away grit, coming off brown. Strange, Ashley’s lipgloss was red, she always matches nails and lips. It should be cherry flavored today… Then the scent hits me, chocolate protein powder. I give the napkin a dirty look. My ceiling creaks again.
Alarm bells ring in my mind. Which I ignore. We’re roommates, we share food all the time.
I’m already walking up the stairs. Slow as my heart will allow. Methodically shifting my weight forward to avoid creaking. This apartment building, all six stories of it, is a mess. Long past its sell by date. I wouldn’t be surprised if the studs rotted out and collapsed a wall or two.
On the sixth floor there is a lobby we like to call ‘the roof’, there’s a pool table, a fridge, and four TVs. All set to the local news station and permanently muted. Except for today. Someone set them all to play Zoolander and turned up the volume.
A lump forms in my throat, hand already shaking as I turn the doorknob and unlock the door. I stand there for a moment.
Do I really want to know?
No. I’m better off closing this door and walking away.
Air pressure tugs the door open, just an inch. Enough to see inside.
I freeze, wishing my eyes are deceiving me. Eyelids actuate, blinking several times in disbelief. What I’m seeing can’t be possible. It just can’t!
I bite my tongue. Hard enough to taste metal. My lingual pain dulls compared to the agony within my human soul. There is no avoiding it. I admit the truth before me. Ashley’s even wearing the ‘together forever’ necklace I gave her, half of a broken heart. There is no mistaking the two people I know best in this world, nor are there any misinterpretations of what they’re doing on top of each other. Clothes are on, but that doesn’t hinder Ashley’s gyrations. The slut is riding my best friend, while his tongue is playing hockey with her tonsils.
On a purely cognitive level I’m impressed at her flexibility. My mind’s pitiful attempt to shut out the trauma and process something. My mouth hits the floor, still not open as wide as theirs-
-oh gawd, where are their tongues going?!
A car alarm blares outside, echoing up the stairwell behind me. I want to die. To vanish into nothing, to become invisible. How could they? This can’t be true!
The alarm does nothing to disturb my roommate or my girlfriend, if anything, it encourages them to press deeper. I want to puke, to disappear from sight, to cease existing. Fly into the sun and die. Throw myself down the six flights of stairs I just climbed.
Six years of friendship. Gone in a second. Six months of our relationship, thrown away for… Her cousin? WHY? I see red, sorrow raging into fury. Wishing that I was a death star, blast them into bits so small they make subatomic quarks look massive. Erase those two from existence along with every memory we’d ever made.
My body moves on its own. Blind to the sudden drop in volume as four TVs turn back to the news. Headline ‘Are alien’s among us?’ Ashley will be his whore before I can reach our apartment. I want to scream ‘go fuck yourselves’ but fear that will only make it a reality.
“Yeah baby do the thing, like yesterday. Yeah, like that!” Moans Baz.
Like yesterday…
This isn’t the first time then.
My thoughts repeat down the stairwell and into my dorm room. The one I share with Baz the asshole. Our apartment consists of four total rooms, a kitchen and common area, the bathroom, and the bedroom we share. Making us the closest of roommates, as only two men who share a bunk bed can be. A dark thought crosses my black thoughts. I grab Baz’ pillow and sniff it, smelling Ashley’s shampoo, some fancy butternut and aloe nonsense that costs three times what head and shoulders does. For a bottle one eighth the size.
“Oh for fuuuuckkkssake!” I scream, opening the window.
Logic abandons me as the pillow sails through the screen, flying across the soccer field. A second later the mattress follows, falling short of the goalpost below.
“How long?” I growl, staring at the half empty bunk.
The answer is obvious. I turn, facing the desk we share. Baz keeps a journal. Twelve notebooks propped up by a hot pink notebook on one end. The pink one is his sister’s. I flip that one open first, inside the cover one word appears.
‘Ashley’
“Fucking liar.” I say.
In seconds I’ve opened the other journals, skimming their contents over the past year and a half. Most of it was inane drivel, Baz had never learned American grammar but a few things stood out.
>December 9th: “Ashley found a ring. Just another month and he’ll finally eat shit. Like he deserves.”
>December 7th: “Never wanted to come to America with that spoiled kid Apollo.”
>May 11th: “Can’t afford a ring. So we’ll get the rich kid to pay for it. Took weeks to plan but the local jeweler sells returned rings for half off, something about sizing them making the gold brittle.”
>February 14th: “Been saving the rent money, Apollo’s got no idea we’re squatting. Makes me hard just thinking about the day I’ll move out and call the sheriff.”
I know reading this will only make things worse. Upset me more, but I can’t stop now. We’ve been in the apartment for a year, this journal is from seven months ago, a full month before Ashley and I began dating. She was never my girlfriend. I was the side piece. The homewrecker. Then I find it. The single passage that explains everything Baz has ever done. Dated May 13th but hidden between two pages I have to peel apart as they’re stuck together with some dried paste. The reason I initially skipped it.
>May 13th: “I’ve got a problem. Ashley’s gorgeous but she doesn’t do it for me anymore. Last night I had the dream again, where I’m hiding in the closet watching her ride someone else. Oh man. Haven’t had a wet dream like that… ever. I’m still turgid. Never felt so disgusted and aroused. Would be better if it was that fucker Apollo…”
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I stop reading.
Too stunned by my best friend’s humiliation kink. This is going to get ugly, he’ll enjoy being dragged in front of a judge. Car alarms are blaring up and down the streets outside. As if the whole world is being shaken violently. My hand slips into the bottom drawer of my desk retrieving my hardcase with a stylized FN printed on the front. My fingers are steady. Combination lock opens to their touch and in seconds I’ve got my 9mm FNX pistol in hand. Three magazines accompany it, each loaded with seventeen hollowpoints. I pull the slide back chambering a round then raise the safety. A flick of my thumb can ready the weapon now. Its holster ends up attached to me, the pistol tucked beneath my shirt, appendix carry. I bag the journals, tossing them all into the plastic shopping bags we keep on hand for trashcan liners.
After all, a hundred million dollars is only ten billion cents, and liners cost a quarter each. Money turns my mind back to the ring. Evil journals in hand I pull the box out of my sock drawer flicking it open to find the ring, unsized and unset. Still in the sealed baggie from ‘Mira’s Jewelry’. ‘Top shelf gems at cutthroat prices’ is written across the plastic, where it keeps my receipt safe.
Speed reading has always been a talent of mine, otherwise school would have been impossible to complete. Though it meant I read every receipt. Mira’s has a 30 day money back guarantee. So long as the ring is unsized. Gold is highly malleable, but once a band has been expanded to fit a finger you can’t realistically shrink the ring. So now its my turn to fuck him.
I’m out the door, headed towards Mira’s with the ring, pistol, and journals, never once pausing to ask myself if this is a good idea. Return the ring, move out, call the landlord and maybe the sheriff too. Midterms just ended, so I’ve got two weeks before school starts again, plenty of time.
A leggy blonde meets me at the bottom of the stairs, waving hello over the blaring alarms. She is Ashley’s roommate, and supposedly Baz’s girlfriend. Once again making me ask how long they’ve been planning. Savannah holds up a letter with my name on it, voice lost in the blaring alarms.
“I can’t hear you!” I shout.
Savannah shrugs, tucking the letter into my pants before heading upstairs. My car is blaring, even after I hit the alarm button it’s still screaming, radio on full volume. Some news broadcast going on about national emergency line or some other clickbait nonsense.
Whatever it is, I can’t hear it over my hatred of whorely and Bazhole. Fury steadies my hands as I pull open the letter, skimming it’s contents.
—
Notice of Academic Probation
Dear Apollo Finley
This letter serves as an official notification regarding your current academic standing with [University Name]. Our records indicate that your cumulative GPA of .5; has fallen below the minimum threshold required for satisfactory academic performance as outlined in the College of Engineering’s guidelines. As such, you have been placed on academic probation, effective immediately, until such time that your GPA exceeds a 3.0 and you are, once again, on track for graduation. Until such time as your GPA improves, all scholarships are suspended.
Academic probation is a structured period during which you are expected to improve your academic standing to meet the necessary requirements for continued enrollment in your program. During this probationary period, you will need to adhere to specific guidelines designed to support your academic progress and ensure your success in the program. Failure to meet the minimum standards listed below by the end of this period may result in further academic action, including but not limited to suspension or dismissal from the university.
You are required to meet with the [enter colleges name]’s dean to discuss potential improvements. We strongly encourage you to consult with your academic advisor to develop a comprehensive plan for improvement. This may include recommended study resources, academic support services, and a suggested course load adjustment to better support your academic goals. Our institution remains committed to helping you achieve success, and there are numerous resources available to assist you during this probationary period…
—
“What…
the…
FUCK!”
They were putting me on academic probation for failing summer school? These cunts didn’t even have the decency to fill out a form right! Really, [enter colleges name]? What kind of half-assed bureaucrat screws up paint by the numbers?! Who were they to ruin my life? I throw the letter, bouncing it off the radio and scream, adding my voice to the blaring alarms.
How could this be happening? The scores from my tests aren’t even back yet! And I thought I did great!
…
Shit…
You never do as well as you think on midterms.
I must have flunked all of them. But this is only the summer term! Sure I failed my underwater basket weaving class but that doesn’t count. It was a summer elective class meant to help me socialize, well, and check out Ashley in a bikini. Her curves… Had never been mine.
My hand finds the pistol once more. Faint buzzing fills my head, like there is a fly behind my ear. I reach up to swat it, only for my hand to go limp. Along with my whole body, eyelids included. All I can see is a blue window, not from the car, but from my mind. A screen.
[HELLO PEOPLE OF– ah hell jim, what is this planet called again?]
[Earth. Like it always is.]
[Shit, that last one being called Eden has got me off kilter]
The words are speaking into my brain directly, verbally and visually being displayed on the blue screen in English. Which does nothing to make the two voices sound less like Curly and Moe stooging up a storm. This is easily the worst trip of my life. I’d rather have a schizophrenia break than listen to this geriatric bullshit. Mentally I try and dismiss the message, receiving a red flash and slight screen shake in way of refusal.
“Great, the two stooges now have unskippable cutscenes.”
[HELLO PEOPLE OF EARTH! We are your gracious overlords, the protectors of your spiral arm, and you are our planted children. I’m pleased to inform you all that you’ve exceeded our expectations for a successful crop, which is excellent news for us both! Since your society will persevere after our culling. Now I know that word has some unfriendly connotations to some of you, but our holy Singularity has devoted a great deal of resources in keeping your planet alive. So it’s only fair to pay your taxes. We’ll be drafting everyone between the ages of twelve and forty two. Roughly four billion people who will then join our highly valued soldiers on the frontlines.]
Culling? Unfriendly connotations is right! That’s what we do to parasites or extraneous bits in a computer, not living breathing people! Wait, conscription? Taxes? This can’t be happening. I’m going to be drafted to fight an interstellar war? No! No no–
Oh…
I don’t have to share a room with Bazzhole anymore. Guess there are worse things. Part of me embraces the concept, eager to escape the cheating siblings. Really, who cheats with their blood relative?
[I see some of you are reacting poorly to this news. Arming those missiles will not prevent us from taking them. All nuclear devices will serve the Singularity well and be counted against Earth’s galactic debt. So you are only harming your own future prospects by launching them. Have no fear, if you comply peacefully then we will drop off nine gates that will allow instantaneous transportation to any continent, as well as to the two gates we’ve already left in orbit. Your sacrifice is the price of admission into the Holy Singularity proper. Once your back taxes are paid in full you’ll be a voting member of our union and warranted all the rights of citizenship. Your entire planet will be modernized as soon as we take the mining world of Syrak-9. All taxable proceeds will then be routed through your earth. Just imagine that, a stable universal income for the entire planet. Soon you will have all the modern amenities of nanotech, holograms, and instant interstellar communication. Welcome all. Now just sit tight, we’ll be teleporting all munitions, nukes- oh wow, you Chinese really went crazy with these, two hundred thousand nukes. Naughty naughty.]
By the tone of his ‘voice’ Apollo could envision the announcer waggling his finger. Like they were some misbehaving little child. Quite rude, but not necessarily undeserved, China only publicly admitted three thousand nukes and signed treaties promising trade concessions if they restrained themselves to that number. It was a small factoid of my nuclear engineering class, a prime example of politics ruining any integrity engineers like myself should have enjoyed.
“A hundred times the treaty amount. Damn China, you made out like billion dollar bandits.”
An old saying comes to mind, mixed and mashed with two others. It’s only cheating if you get caught, but in love and war there are no rules, only the winners who are left.
[Cmon Haime, you’re butchering the announcement!] Snapped a second voice.
[Right right, oh where was I? Eh, doesn’t matter. Have your gates, we’ll be taking guns, bullets, nukes, four billion ish people and yada yada. You’ll be mindwiped and then flashtrained to fill in our gaps. If you find any of this disturbing, be sure to report to your nearest medical professional. We give them weekend trainings specifically on recursive mindwipes! Toodles.]
[HAIME!
DO IT RIGHT!]
[Okay, fine. Look here earthlings. I was once in your shoes and I understand how confused you must be. But the Novan Technocracy of Steel is about to seize this world. See that ‘of Steel’ part in their name, it’s not for show. They’ll lobotomize every last one of you, carve off your limbs so you’ll fit inside whatever toaster or dildo they need to be ‘smart’. Artificial intelligences rule them completely with zero human oversight or veto power. To them, we are nothing other than wetware. We need more soldiers to hold them back, not here, but on Syrak-9. Win there and the Technocracy won’t be able to fuel their ships and take this earth. Sorry.]
He paused, allowing the globe a few moments to process the message.
[You’ve got a shit choice. If half of you don’t bite the pillow and stop them, they will lobotomize you and everyone you’ve ever loved-]
If they started with Baz and Ashley I would not be opposed to that…
[-so the Singularity has received emergency orders from our military AIs and civil senate, a unanimous decision mind you, to prevent that from happening. I was drafted as well, this really isn’t a bad thing, just look at me now, Captain of an interstellar colony ship complete with warp drive and teleportation. Some will die, but most of you will become generals, pilots, doctors, and more. We even have a few million slots for colonists. Flash training will give you all the skills anyone could need. It’ll be like going to sleep and then waking up having gone through twelfth grade, college, and a trade school. Except you’ll remember your lessons. Really great tech.]
Our stairwell has windows lining the outside wall, I see Savannah reach our apartment, just as light engulfs her body then shoot off into the sky. Thousands of identical lights take hold of people, whisking them away. Several lifted vehicles are teleported as well, I have less than a second to think as the light snags me, pulling me into the sky. One second I was in my car, pondering murder and the next I was shirtless.
Slime coated my entire body in a moistness that gagged thought.
I gasp, inhaling to scream, only for warm fluid to fill my lungs. No, not warm, hot, body temperature, slightly salty yet subtly sweet, like a bag of boiled saline poured into Kool-Aid. Kinda tasty in a sweaty way. Glass surrounds me, I’m in a tube, naked. About to drown in whatever concoction they’ve isolated me in. My nostrils flare, inhaling a second time on reflex. I prepare for the end, wishing Baz and Ashley a similar fate. An echo of the announcement rises in my mind, drafting all ages twelve to forty two. Mom is thirty eight years young. She could be here too. Damnit. Seconds pass, I inhale again, but my vision is fine. My mind works. Is this death? Had the tax collectors killed us?
Why would tax collectors kill? We were the prize. It was like the IRS collecting your taxes only to put the bills through a shredder. Nothing made any sense. Then I realize waste is standard operating procedure for governments.
Amongst four billion people, I’m the typo.
Doomed to drown.
—
“Final jump portal launched. Geosynchronous orbit achieved.” Says the navigation AI, temporarily silencing all other readouts.
Diodes and alerts came back in a tidal wave. Beeping, honking, hooting, and all being ignored by the two pilots.
“Harvest complete.” Chimes an alarm.
A zephyr circulates around the cockpit, both pilots hunched over screens, monitoring cryopod readouts for any abnormalities. AI systems sort and categorize almost five billion human beings. 70% of the world was just hoovered up into space using rented teleportation systems. Angry beeping marks two hundred million people as unfit for any possible role within the Singularity. Too many trauma induced psychopaths.
“What did these people go through? Why are so many skitzo? Ah hell Jim, the most advanced country is the fatest. We’ll have to reject most of these worthless sacks of shit.” Haime says, more for the sake of bitching than for conversation.
“Who cares, we got a billion and a half more people than projections accounted for. A billion man! With a B! We can flush the outliers from the past twelve worlds and still exceed every quota for the next two years! Don’t you see it Haime, we’re rich! Hallelujah!” Jim shouts, unbuckling his harness and moving to leave.
“Abandoning station already? We ain’t even cashed in yet!” Snaps Haime, a frown slashing itself across his face.
“Bro, I’m just so excited! Even a dead world or the federales won’t break us. I can buy a new head of hair and a century of being twenty five! Gotta go inspect the cargo, see it with my own eyes, not just on sensors.” He gasped, feeling lightheaded under the assault of billions of credits.
Red warning lights suddenly blare, bathing the cockpit in warnings.
“Aw what the hell!” Jim snaps, jumping back into his seat and checking the sensor readout.
“A portal opening? We launched those seconds ago! Who in their right mind jumps to an uncharted backwater-”
More red lights appeared. Ships from twelve separate factions were already queued up, transiting through the gate in order of request and priority payments. Haime’s face hangs open, staring at the first ship to emerge.
“Jim, if we die–”
“Shutup asshole! Transmit our charter before they vaporize us!” Jim shouts.
Seconds pass as the sleek crystalline ship emerges from the disk of light. An Azhurai Conglomerate Corvette. Fast, armed to the teeth, and shielded better than most homeworlds. Oddly conical due to the main gun, a prismatic laser array capable of variable output, all the way from scrotum shaving precision to strength capable of peeling away the moon’s regolith layer like one would peel an apple.
“Charter has been transmitted. Please leave us alone.” Haime prayed.
Three lights begin blinking green as missile locks stop tracking the ship.
“Azhurai ship turning away, they acknowledge our collection duties as legal.” Gasped Jim.
“Thank the nameless!” Said Haime, collapsing into his chair.
A single light began blinking, a com channel. Jim shut his eyes, praying for a moment before answering the com. Two minutes later he spoke.
“Shit. Can’t get one over on the Conglomerate. They read our fine print and noticed our open charter.” Jim winced, struggling to read the next translation. “We demand first right of refusal concerning any and all special grade merchandise we have aboard-”
Blaring claxions erupted as twenty additional warships emerged from the portal. Swift Singularity frigates, lumbering moons the Technomancy call dreadnoughts, a swarm of bioships tethered to a single hive mind, and everything in between. Both pilots looked at each other, then got to work. Neither one wanted to catch a stray missile.
“Shields to full power. Broadcasting charter to everyone.” Said Haime.
So many warships above an uncharted world meant only one thing. War. One of those factions would conquer earth, or see it burnt to ashes around them. An easy task given how many guns, bombs, and people Jim had just pilfered from missile siloes and warlords. Now safely defanged in their hold. Instead of on Earth. Without ICBMs or Nuclear weapons these humans had no chance.
“Damn. Waste of a good world.” Said Jim, maneuvering the arkship behind Luna as the ships began firing. Half at each other, and half at the surface.