CHAPTER 7

The colonists are gone. Now that they have been abducted from Mars without a trace in an unidentified ambush, Yasmine is puzzled when she attempts to come up with a reason for their disappearance. She does not know about the kidnapping, yet. An unanswered transmission to the excavation site means even more trouble. While Bartram is on his flight to Salinas, Yasmine's assignment to the colonists' camp seems more like an extra burden that is distracting. Now that she has had a meeting with Dr. Adams at the dinosaur exhibition, the pictures remind her to contact Mars for confirmation. Though this time, she is left only with silence.

On Mars, the colonists' excavation site has been thoroughly destroyed by the arrival of Gereon Heinemann and his Nemesis crew, incinerating their campsite. The Concord is recognizing the hazard humans pose for their mission of galactic supremacy. By waking the transmitter separating worlds from Pangaea, the humans become one of two targets for the new planet-killer. The primary goal is to annihilate the Yhemlen. Strong as they are, Gereon has plans to take the starship Nemesis right to them.

In a cold, open zone of the starship Nemesis, hollowed walkways are fortified by metal panels. The dimly lit interior matches nicely to the dingy surface of Mars in the smell and hue of some copper pieces, as they pull away from the surface. The Martian colonists left confined in their cell are sealed away within a dungeon to the rear of the starship. It makes sense being that Gereon and his crew are not exactly human anymore that they tuck them away from view. They would not want to be reminded of such mortal fragility.

"The humans are now a hazard to the Grey Order's truce for peace," Gereon says. "We must act on the presiding danger to stop the threat to our cease-fire with Yhemlen brigands. The generation of peace is coming to an end."

He and his son Jasper are in the front-facing control lodge, the cockpit. Jasper's sister Madame Ria remains rested against a side wall where she holds her slender arms crossed in front. Artificial magnetic poles keep everyone bound inside the starship's primary hull, extra-fortified by the magnetosphere dipole circling the cockpit and its energy generators. From inside, tiny magnetospheres are positioned throughout the Nemesis to balance them at a steep decline in the cockpit and within the rest of the starship Nemesis behind the front cabin. Outside, a bubble of gravitational force is centered at the floor and beneath the starship, but is only a fraction of Earth's, though their suits take care of the rest. Madame Ria swivels from the Mars silhouette whose curved horizon shines in the distance and looks toward the Sun gleaming at the outer edges of Nemesis's wings and rings flanked wide to each side, mirroring the same tug of war forces.

Captain Gereon lowers himself in the cockpit seat after pistons fire underneath him. He is locked onto a coordinate of stars shining ahead that will anchor his light bridge portal back home. Systems are prepared to activate recall, teleporting themselves to their home in an alternate future.

"They are deliberately crossing the divide," says Jasper, whose aura is darkened by his black suit while beside his father's gold one. His sister glances from across the pilot cockpit.

As she looks on from afar, Madame Ria says, "Perhaps not. They are practicing diligence, meaning they are being careful. It is their curiosity that's led them here. At least we know what capturing a few has brought us, trouble." The three Heinemann of the Grey Order keep their helmet covers retracted, and their piercing voices make each German syllable more pronounced. For Gereon, his days as Heinemann patriarch do not let him forget their mother, who died valiantly. For Madame Ria, her place in all of this is still a mystery next to her brother. Of course, things could have gone differently for this family. Captain Gereon was a teenager when he left for the Grey Order, and it was their mother who was set on another path.

The Martians they abducted are still in the back lodging, unable to move past the limits of the cinder block chamber's walls. It is not only the starship Nemesis with barriers like these. The Old World is a place where the Grey Order rarely visits, never mind the traffickers, and it is humans just like these Martian colonists who are relegated to concentration zones on Earth's surface. The cities below orbit are dilapidated and crime is rampant but being so far from the Old World keeps the Grey Order at ease.

Gereon engages in automatic navigation before marching past Jasper and Madame Ria. He is heading straight toward the abducted colonists in the chamber covered by thick, ironclad bars. Old dinosaur specimens and artifacts of study line the walls where they have been preparing for their next ambush against the Yhemlen for vengeance. Before long, the Martian colonists remove their helmets when they finally realize they can breathe oxygen in the cabin.

Gereon has an elongated stride to seem taller than he is. His snowy bleached skin has a subtle sparkle that attracts attention when he reaches them. He was one of the first to be mutated in a shift toward racial supremacy. Now, he's also one of the oldest remaining survivors in a time when war is nigh.

"It appears that you've crossed a very dangerous border," Gereon says. His head is smooth all around, but the half-life glow is prominent on the back of his enlarged skull. A few unhinged snaps let loose his face mask that recoils with automatic slides into a panel along the neck. Gereon's entire face is revealed for the Martian colonists to see.

His eyes grow wider than any of the colonists could emulate. And his thin lips allow him the ability to speak strained words.

"What are you?" asks one of the colonists.

Gereon leans his protrusive head, amused at such a trivial question.

"I am, what you could have been," he says. The affront is made without any emotion. What he thinks, is little more than a fact. "We are homo superior due to our additional senses. Our telepathic communication makes us unwilling to return to the way of vagabonds, like yourselves."

Behind Gereon is an emblem that reminds them of a forbidding history. The embossed swastika that's ingrained in the wall is too obvious to ignore. Martian colonists are spooked enough by his telepathic abilities across an advanced frequency bandwidth. The exposure is something the humans cannot initiate without some technical aid, but the colonists are on the receiving end of his wavelengths.

"What a shame," Gereon says. "A species such as yours, too dumb to communicate with your real mind."

"We surrender, okay!" one of the colonists pronounces, acquiescing to Gereon's high-mindedness.

"There is no surrender!" Gereon snaps back. "Only submission to expansion and supremacy. That's why I decided against killing you all."

"We're not your slaves!"

"Ah, so outdated. Is the dog not a slave to its master? Humans have always relied on the conveniences of communication to keep organized. I prefer inciting social chaos. We despise words because they corrupt the Grey Order's mission. Our telepathic vibrations keeps us connected to the cosmic web while vagabonds like yourselves worry about feeding your bellies."

The colonists simmer in anger after their abrupt capture. While they contemplate over the unexpected, they cannot help but shake their heads at what they've become. Going from national heroes to underlings of some advanced otherworld species in little time. The starship Nemesis is traversing away from Sector 10, or Capricorn, where Earth resides in a new zodiac sign. Nearby constellations are used for positioning across space. For Gereon and the rest of this Grey Order to reign supreme, the Yhemlen and Humans must be annihilated.

Gereon's superego is unmatched. "Hundreds, thousands even, of mere humans cannot equal one of us," he says. "If the vagabonds remain disorganized in social chaos, lines of communication are broken."

There have been many insurgents, but failed revolutionaries are a dime a dozen. Only recently has a new coup been rumored to lurk in the background. "

"And what about us then, you seem to be talking to us just fine."

Gereon remains quiet, lowering heavy eyelids before engaging his face mask again to cover his appearance. The blue wavelengths to his voice return on the bottom visor, lustrous against the glossy, silver mask. His voice is no longer emanating from his throat, but an android-assisted speaker.

"If you like, the vagabonds on Earth refer to us as Mirai. From the mirages of light that they constantly see in the sky. I must attend to other matters," Gereon says. Vagabond slang is prevalent in The Concord, the term Mirai being the most popular.

Before he can leave, Ria rushes in to alert Gereon of paid bounty hunters waiting in a back corridor, even farther. The colonists are startled by loud chants coming from the other side of a barricaded door. These are Mirai of another kind, large brutes genetically engineered to inflict pain. They want their money.

Members from the Grey Order like the Heinemann have no fear of them. The half-life glow of genetic mutation allows them the ability to turn into giants at a moment's notice. Rapid gene transmutation allows Gereon and the Grey Order to transform into brutes of tremendous size and power in a spontaneous metamorphous. These bounties are the first line of defense. To do this requires raw energy, something they can afford to conserve for crises.

Inside the rumbling starship Nemesis, the colonists in iron shackles feel the sensation of motion to a point just before weightlessness, but it is negated by the adjustments of a magnetic cabin. The anticipation of a rush in propulsion startles them before they are jolted.

"Hey! Where are you taking us? Let us go!" a colonist yells as Gereon and Madame Ria begin to walk back toward the cockpit.

"Please refrain from screams. There is nowhere to go. Besides, Earth is a familiar place for each of us." At the front cockpit, Jasper pilots the Nemesis toward a predetermined light bridge portal.

Around the starship, a cylindrical, quantum vacuum thruster rotates as it readies a beam to manipulate gravity with a laser. The laser-guided system maps an advanced chart of the stars light-years away. Humans like the colonists have only recently begun ratifying plans to use semi-advanced nuclear fusion rockets for the long journey to Earth's nearest stars systems. The only thing they need now is a sleep chamber.

Travel far enough, and time is easily manipulated with the help of image spectrometry. Inevitably, alternate timelines are created when traveling backward in time. Advanced telescopes direct the Nemesis using precise mapping coordinates. A luminous blue wave glows brighter than the sun, condensing heat to collapse material objects, otherwise known as teleportation. Jasper plots the course recall, mapping the distance it will take to return to their home Earth in a parallel universe within the cosmic web. He measures his course carefully and once set, directs the light rays to create a ring of pulsating energy allowing them to pass through the light bridge.

Above the head of one of the colonists in the prison chamber rests a hollowed-out skull which frightens her when she leans back on it.

"Ah! What is that?" She notices the skull anchored from a pole on the panel behind her. The shape of the skull is long at the top, and then to the jaw where an elongated bite shows sharp teeth like other reptiles. But it resembles a bipedal being like themselves in which a brain can thrive.

Captain Gereon is reminded of the latest mission when he hears the commotion from the back. He makes fast steps back toward the prison cell. "Now that I think of it, you all make great bait for the Yhemlen. It's going to be sad to see all of you go."

"We are ready to initiate the Kugel-Blitz," Jasper declares from the cockpit, holding both hands over the control panel.

"Can't we all of us just live together?" Someone screams from the back chamber. His sound is muffled by distance.

"That is a pipe dream! They," Gereon points to the skull of a deceased Yhemlen. "They will be you in no time."

"Fuck!" the colonist exhales in exasperation.

Gereon's voice wavelengths roll with each spoken sentence on his lower facemask. "One by one, that's how it goes," he says, referring to worlds being annihilated.

"If that's the case, aren't there thousands of possible outcomes? And to think in this scenario, there's only three of us in the multiverse with intelligent life."

"Life isn't that easy, as you can imagine, it's hard." Gereon telepathically yells into the screaming colonist's head. "I'm sure you're familiar with the immense expanse of space. That's why I don't bother with windows. The aliens you've been searching for aren't out there."

"Initiating contact," Jasper confirms from the cockpit.

The Martian colonist's head pounds with stimulating force, the succession of words almost leads to an aneurysm in his brain. Captain Gereon stops just short of short-circuiting his neural system.

"Look, just teleport us back out of here. You're good at that." The colonist looks around to find an open window, getting restricted by solid barriers in their way. "Just send us back out there and we can warn the others before this gets out of hand. If not, you're going to pay! You hear me, they're going to get us out of here; someone will rescue us."

"There is no stopping this, it's all part of the supreme plan. What's coming cannot be stopped. Besides, your rescue attempts will be futile." Gereon finally marches back to meet Jasper at the cockpit. The Nemesis is suddenly engulfed by a blue light that jolts the cabin.

Captain Gereon is poised to finish the mission. "This is exactly what the Yhemlen are planning to brace for. It is prophecy. We must be prepared for anything. I'm sure these vagabond Martians won't be the last," he says.

The Yhemlen computer, Sephora, has already had one confrontation with someone across the Wall, AIS Aladdin of Delphi Corp. With the volunteer researchers inching ever closer to that same Wall, the motherboard will have no choice but to converge them into an alternate reality. The battle for Earth is looming larger.

🌌

At the LOTRY Community Center, Van Dyke has taken it upon himself to retrieve the contaminated lettuce that Joe Hansen recovered from the Diner. He hopes to give the court a real reason to file charges that can send Bartram and Delphi Corp. into a downward spiral for good. Using his social media influence, Van Dyke has managed to circumvent city council ordinances that patronize private investigators, instead, he is an independent journalist.

Van Dyke is standing firm in his plan to undo Bartram. Maybe going away to Salinas was a good thing for Ellis. Van Dyke's been setting up covert cameras at each block to monitor and track Delphi Corp. members through surveillance of their Headquarters. There is one person he sees everywhere. Benny, the intern of Naoto Shimizu. And with his frequent visits to the nightclub Amplify Van Dyke has a perfect target to study for familiarity.

Before that, he trots over to Dave's Diner, where this outbreak in food poisoning has made a lasting impact, for an in-person encounter with the owner. Van Dyke reaches Dave's Diner in his electrically powered van. The promotional advertising along the outside gives him a notion of making a sell as he parks in front of the vintage building. Everything looks legitimate.

As he reaches the doors, Van Dyke enters the quiet space and soon realizes the results of the emotional fallout from days prior with littered waste, leftover food pieces, and even articles of clothing scattered around the floors, end to end. With his recording equipment in his grasp, Van Dyke draws curious glances after reaching the front desk. Employees are repairing the mess.

"Can I help you?" someone asks.

"Yes, actually I'm on a business call. Is the supervisor in?"

"Sure, he's in the back. I can get him for you."

"Alright, that's fine," Van Dyke says, setting his equipment down to a plush couch.

The supervisor finally arrives and when he sees Van Dyke, he immediately recognizes the media personality.

"I think I know who you are, that Van Dyke fella. I don't want any more issues than I already have. No Delphi Corp. mess in here, sorry," the supervisor says.

"It's okay, okay," Van Dyke supplicates.

"I'm trying to help out, I just want to take a survey of what happened."

The supervisor waves his hands to dissuade him. "Can we keep it private, just us two? We don't need any more bad publicity."

Van Dyke agrees, taking care to acknowledge the supervisor's concerns. For Van Dyke, he plans to use this investigation to warn others. They go to the back where the supervisor shows him the contaminated lettuce. After a few days, the veiny texture of the leaf's skin has grown even more prominent.

"So, what happened here?" Van Dyke asks.

"A man's wife had a really bad reaction to this. The lettuce of course, but we had to do an entirely new order from another wholesaler. This is killing our profits. The lady is in a coma and now at the hospital. I thought she just passed out! My chefs aren't too keen on the whole thing, I have to hire new ones from the others that quit."

"Can I take some, as a specimen?" Van Dyke requests.

"I don't see why you'd want to. The risk and reward, I mean, what's in it for you if you get sick too? Take it off my hands, but boy the trouble you'll have if this outbreak gets worse. Yeah, it's probably not safe. Nobody confiscated it, I guess it wasn't that important." The supervisor runs fingers over the blue veins. "Some things tend to fall through the cracks, you know. They don't need my lettuce, there are plenty of samples."

Van Dyke decides to return to the Community Center with the rotting vegetables, anyway, growing more anxious for answers. He already agreed to become one of the testifying members of the trial jury proceeding over Joe Hansen's lawsuit initiated later in the week, and Silas Betts continues to turn a blind eye to the outbreak. All this time he has been avoiding the obvious, it has gotten old to him.

He grabs the attention of a new media student. "He's got veggies, go figure."

The small group is rather squeamish, and they're trying to advance themselves past their shortcomings.

"I'm trying to learn media. What happened to the news podcast?"

"We're getting there, fellas. Let me try and get this stuff together before we get going."