I was four years old - again - when my second life decided to veer far off of the expected course.
I stared blankly at the datapad, a handheld metallic screen not unlike a smart tablet. Scrounged from some of Father's things, I frequently sat in bed each night and tried to learn what I can. The data network it accessed was nothing like the modern-day Internet, and learning to navigate that while held back linguistically was incredibly difficult. Written in a language called Osmotin with letters that were less like letters and more like Chinese characters, there was much I could not read adequately, and finding a search engine function was incredibly difficult.
Google was not eternal, apparently, and typing in the rough translation of that word revealed nothing. Perhaps my translation was wrong, though - learning Osmotin was the hardest thing I'd ever done, academically, but I had plenty of time on my hands to do it because no toddler had a busy schedule. I'd come a long way, but there was long to go. I could have gotten farther if Mother could devote more time to me, but I understood that she could not.
I scrambled my way through site after site, annoyed that this was organized very much like a wiki crawl. It was like the Internet had restarted at Web 2.0 and had not progressed further, or perhaps had regressed to that stage, in all this time. Regardless of the truth, each night, I felt like I got closer and closer to something resembling what I am looking for, until finally, I found something to confirm exactly what I suspected.
A news article or bulletin with a headline that loosely translated as follows: "Period of Something? Ahead - Expect Falling Sky Objects." Sponsored by a writer for Clan Herod, a name I'd overheard frequently enough to believe that it was someone important in the capital.
Wherever that was. It was not Washington D.C. or London or Moscow or Beijing.
I read through the next few lines of the article, the verbiage hard to parse as this was not written for someone like me. That one word in the headline had no easy translation, or was one that I had not encountered before. A name? The article itself provided little more context. Something about a year ago, something about rocks, something about the last time this happened twenty years back. Something close to Osmotin - Osmos?
A hand reached for the datapad and gently yanked it from my fighting grasp. Father stood at the foot of the bed, a magnifying monocle lens covering one eye while he smelled vaguely of the butchery he called work. An admonishing frown crossed his face, brow raised in challenge.
Frustration built in the pit of my stomach, and I had to actively push down the will to fight.
"I didn't, uh, hear you come in."
He adjusted the light fixture to the side of my bed and pulled the cord, revealing the rest of the room. The window looking out into the small yard shone with our reflections against the darkened desert sands. His look did not improve as the seconds passed, and the click of the datapad screen going dark echoed in the silence. Fingers reached up to grasp the monocle and to put it away.
"You've been doing this every night for the past week."
A sheepish blush covered my cheeks, and I ignored the childish impulse to lie. "I - yes."
He glanced at the half-open bedroom door. "Your mother and I worry about you, Cassian. You had the opportunity to come with me to work-"
"I don't like blood."
Not true, but the truth was harder to explain.
Father sighed. "I know. You always say that, but you don't look uncomfortable right now." He adjusted his shirt for good measure, where a bit of his job must have leaked onto his real clothing beneath whatever counts for an apron. "You haven't wanted to leave the house much at all."
Why would I? Four year olds were the most physically uncoordinated creatures imaginable. I tripped over my own toe the other day and nearly split my face open on the edge of a stairwell. Not to mention the weaker immune system - I had no desire to catch an infection and test the childhood mortality rate of this time. Or place? Add in the fact that our house rested on the edge of a sandy desert that looked to run for hundreds of miles in all directions?
No, it was much better to stay indoors and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can. That was the only benefit to being so sheltered.
"I just like the house, Father," I answered. "It's safe here. Cooler here."
Our only cleaning robot forced its way past Father, interrupting whatever he was about to say. It picked up the towel from my earlier shower, squeezed any excess water from it into a porthole on its side, and then rolled back into the exterior hallway.
Father huffed. His distaste for the robot was openly a topic at many family dinners - his sister bought it for us, and he hates the idea of her charity. She ran a wealthy business in the capital, but I'd never met her.
"Look, Cassian." He shook his head. "You're coming with us to the celebration tomorrow. Your mother was adamant that we buy tickets for a show."
I smiled. "That's good to hear. And, okay."
His face brightened.
Did I want to go to the celebration? Not particularly, but I'll do it for her. They really have given me too much leeway anyway to stay home at such a young age, but I know how to make a sandwich, to let the cooler air at night circulate, to avoid running into anything sharp, and to not unlock the exterior doors to our home for anyone. I could take care of myself.
What could a group of people honoring some dead elder really need with another young child who barely understands the context anyway?
"And, son, this is going to stay in my office. Understood?"
I nodded, but I did not mean it. I won't let an overbearing parent stop me from gaining whatever information that I can about this new life. Impassable door to that office be damned. I'd tried every method I could over the past year, and whatever tech it had kept me from going inside.
I gestured to the datapad under his arm. "Father, what did that mean by falling sky objects? Like, meteors?"
He stopped at the door and turned to look incredulously at me. "You read all that?"
I frowned. "Most of it? I think?"
Father clicks the screen on again and reads it over for a few seconds. "Oh, it - uh - it means that we might have to spend some time underground soon."
"Underground?"
He waved his hands to assuage my worries. "I'm sure it's nothing to be worried about, Cassian. The sky won't fall down on us any time soon."
OSMOS V
September 14, 15:44 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE ELEVEN
The family house rested on the outskirts of a small city called Sanitas, and it took a little time walking on my tiny legs to begin to see its sand-blasted metallic structures. The town itself almost seemed to emerge from the sands of the Magna Desertus that enveloped it on all sides and partially buried it. Domes topped major buildings and homes, and only a few unfortunate structures had sharpened corners and edges. Stairs regularly descended below the surface level, and spoke to greater underground floors in places like markets or auditoriums.
Father always talked about upgrading our home to have a domed roof, but it was neither easy nor feasible to do. His work as a butcher was an important one, but not one that made a ton of money. Mother was barely the breadwinner with her work as a hospital clerk, and despite all of that, my parents did their best to never let me know it. If I were not an adult in all but body, I might have been blissfully unaware of the poverty we sometimes deftly avoided and occasionally embraced.
Mother clutched my hand in hers while I walked beside her, sweaty palms sticking together. With my free hand, I adjusted the black hood protecting the back of my neck from the sun streaming above, hoping the event was outside its reach. Father walked just behind us, and every time I looked back at him, he was scanning the crowds as though looking for something.
His eyes settled on a holographic banner above a squat dome jutting above the sands that read: "The Day of Salimus Rex" in the bold, black symbols of Osmotin. Beneath the larger celebratory message was an eye-catching advertisement, and Father perked at the sight of it. "Lucrecia, we should stop by on the way back."
Mother studied it for a moment as well, craning her neck to look past a throng of people walking across the street. "We don't need a new generator."
Father balked. "The one we have now barely functions."
"We can't afford a new generator."
"Perhaps, but Mattrima has never steered us wrong. We can make a payment plan with her-"
"Until we need a new one, I don't think we should be cutting into our savings."
The tension in the argument built until others started to notice. An elderly woman - old enough for her horns to have sprouted, apparently - shot me a sympathetic look from behind her kiosk selling some kind of future meat - not quite chicken, not quite beef. Given the way things were headed back then, I'm sure all the infrequent meals with meat I'd had were really meat substitutes. She waved one of her kebobs in my direction, a peaceful look on her face.
"Father, can we get some?" I asked in an attempt to redirect the tension. Their expressions soften and their volume lowers, while the onlookers returned to their usual Day of Salimus Rex routines. "It's not too expensive, right?"
Father glanced at Mother for a long second, and then he bent down to look at me in the eye. He had such presence - for a moment, all the worries in the world slipped away as he gripped my shoulders. "Cassian, don't worry about price. We're doing just fine."
Mother offered a small smile from behind her husband. "He's right, you know. We can certainly afford an early treat for the day."
If they say so…
The line for the woman's kiosk was not long, but the wait time distracted everyone from the earlier tension long enough for me to ask a question that bugged me. Research I've done has been limited - most of the time I've spent in front of any device has been learning the language, not actively searching the extranet for answers. Learning the interface was far more difficult than it needed to be.
"Who was Salimus Rex anyway?"
Father smiled, though I'm not certain if it was meant in a condescending manner or not. Frustrations slid into the forefront of my mind yet again as I prepared for the answer, expecting something said with kid gloves.
Instead, the man replied, "A general who lived a long time ago. He was born here and gave his life to defend the Triarchy from enemies beyond the stars."
I glanced up, confused - not all of those words had meaning for me, but I was fairly certain that the Triarchs were the leaders of the region, country, or nation. "How long ago?" And from beyond the stars… a general who fought alien invaders? "The stars?"
"Osmos V is just one planet in the greater universe, Cassian," Mother explained, as though it was not the most shocking thing she had ever said to me. "The general lived and died sixteen hundred years ago, the last time our planet faced visitors. You'll learn a bit about his final moments tonight!"
Osmos V…
Other worlds.
Horns.
Osmotin.
I…
This was incredibly bad news.
OSMOS V
September 14, 19:37 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE ELEVEN
The festival was largely a blur for someone in my predicament. Street performers, couples' dances, and clan-sponsored feasts were quite extravagant, but nothing really stood out to me. I was sure that Salimus Rex had been a good man and all of this was very important to honor local history.
But goddamn, this planet was not Earth.
I pinched my own arm, in case this was merely some elaborate four-year-long dream. No… no, this was real. This was my life now.
How could I not have seen it before?
In my own defense, until the people of this planet get old enough, they looked virtually identical to humans and had much of the same bodily functions. The food was different, yes, but a diet of meats, cheeses, and vegetables was perfectly normal. The sky was, admittedly, a shade of brighter blue than the Earth's own atmosphere, but I'd rationalized that to merely be some product of a futuristic, maybe cleaner Earth. I didn't have any context now for when I was, or if the planet I called home even existed anymore. I'd been reborn as an alien baby on another planet - all bets were off, and anything was poss-
"Look, Cassian!" Mother interrupted, gesturing toward the main event she'd been so happy to attend.
I really should continue my damn self-destructive spiral of doubt, despair, and destabilization, Mother. But, well, history of an alien planet was far more interesting to me, now that I knew that. With what limited knowledge of Osmotin I'd picked up, a lot of the history was still available to learn.
A shirtless man with long dark hair and four prominent horns carried a large prop blade that curved at the edge. He sidled across from his opponents, who gathered about the edges of the stage until they began to surround him. The stage actor playing the hero was the spitting image of Salimus Rex according to the statues that decorated public places for the event. Facing him down were several men and women in elaborate costumes, their own prop metallic weapons of all sizes and shapes in hand. Cheap, feathered wings stretched unmoving from their backs, barely hanging on through whatever ties they were using to keep them anchored to their backs.
The narrator cleared her throat, and music began to play as she fiddled with her blonde hair in one hand and something akin to microphone in the other. "And so, Salimus Rex left his fighting soldiers behind, soldiers who gave their final breaths to ensure that their fearless leader had but one moment. One moment to make things right, to disable the bomb, and to save the Triarchy from certain destruction."
The music reached its peak, and that was their cue to begin an elaborate mock fight. The choreography was rather impressive for a one-night show like this, and I could tell that the actors had had a ton of practice to really nail this. With each definitive blow, the hero of the moment defeated a crowd of goons before coming blade-to-blade with the apparent leader of the bird-men, a demonic masked creature with glowing eyes and gaunt, gray wings. The crowd was on the edge of their seats, and I had to admit that I was interested in their version of the outcome as well. The tension mounts among the audience as, in the background of the stage, a screen counted down to destruction.
The narrator, a young woman with a magenta dress robe, spoke into the projector, standing just on the edge of the staged battle arena. "The gallant Salimus Rex and the demonic Onimar Synn face each other for the final time before the doomsday device counts down to zero!" She pointed to the prop device, a machine designed to look like a whirring energy bomb in the background of the fight. "How will Salimus Rex cope with the potential destruction of Osmos V and the death of the Triarchs?"
The two actors traded blows, and I had to admit that the production had out-done themselves and whatever I expected of them. It was still goofy and over the top, but it had some merit. I had been in several plays growing up in my first life, and this performance was more than I expected when Mother floated the idea to me earlier. The audience itself was huge - I had not seen so many people in my second life in one place before, all enjoying the festivities and the events and coming together for a shared experience like this.
It was almost enough to distract me from the existential crisis that was my second life. This was another planet, not a future Earth…. I needed to research geography, politics, and history as soon as possible. A whole new world…
When Onimar Synn delivered a fatal blow to the abdomen with the strike of a perfected music cue, fake blood splattered across the stage in a gruesome display. Salimus collapsed to his knees, gasping for air and grasping at the wound. The demonic-faced birdman screeched, "You're bested, hero. There is nothing you can do but watch your nation burn and leave your planet to rot!"
Salimus Rex shook his head fervently. "No. No, no, no! I won't stand for i-it!"
"Don't make me laugh, Osmosian. You've no tools to defeat me nor my weapon. Even now, while we talk, I whittle the timer down to zero. Send your thoughts to whatever gods or ancestors you worship, scum!"
The timer ticked to ten seconds. I leaned forward to watch the final moments, expecting things to go the way of the heroic Osmosian. How would he turn it around in the next few moments?
Salimus shouted in rage and slammed his fists upon the ground. "This is your end!"
…
How did they do that effect?
A gray stone-coated Salimus Rex, looking every bit the statue that many street corners had temporarily arranged throughout Sanitas, rushed forward, unimpeded by whatever had occurred in that split-second. Onimar Synn, expecting this, swung his weapon down upon the head of Salimus Rex, but the Osmosian flicked a reinforced hand up and grabbed the handle with a grinding crack as the blade struck the open palm.
The metal of the prop blade began to coat the limb that gripped the weapon, extending up to cover most of the arm to the upper bicep. A moment later, and that fist rockets into the villainous actor's ribcage, hitting hard in a practiced maneuver that seemed so real that it beggared belief.
"The special effects are great," I muttered under my breath, still not sure how they got a spotlight to shine colored light on just the skin to convincingly pull whatever that was off. What were they implying about this general's real history, here? A mythological retelling with some ancestor protection from whatever clan?
The crowd erupted into cheers as the birdman fell to his knees, then to his stomach to lay dead, wings unfurled to almost completely cover his body. The actor playing Salimus Rex returned to his normal hue, inch by inch, and limped bleeding toward the device set to blow in the middle of the stage. A single punch later, and the actor collapsed to the ground to his injuries, the timer halted with only three seconds to spare.
"And with that final moment, Salimus Rex ensured the continued existence of Osmos V and our beloved Triarchy." The narrator finished with a bow of the head, and the crowd cheered once more, myself included.
On the way out of the venue, the sun had begun to set in the sky, bathing everything in a soft light. I spotted the main actor engaging with some of the crowd on the way out, and he seemed a popular enough man. Despite a youthful face, his horns suggested he was older than either of my parents, which was still wild to me and only further solidified how this revelation about Osmos V and its people forced me to reconsider everything I thought I knew.
I raced over to the actor with a quick word to Mother, hoping that my being young would be helpful for a change. The tall Osmosian twisted his head down to look toward me with a grimace on his face, a woman hanging on his left arm and trying to drag him away from me.
"Excuse me!"
"No, thanks, ki-"
"I'm not a kid," I argued, before realizing how impetuous that must sound to someone not in the know. So, you know, everyone. "How'd they do that thing?"
"The play? We wrote a script, er, made costumes, and uh-"
"No, that light trick across your skin! You almost matched the stage, and it was hard to see you if you weren't paying attention from where we were watching, up there."
My go-to maneuver when I wanted to be a cute toddler was to bounce on the balls of my feet.
The man stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "This a serious question?"
"Yeah!" I shouted. "I'm interested in how show business here works, and how they pulled that off could be helpful. A hologram, maybe? One set to stick to your movement patterns."
The actor frowned. "For a smart kid, you sure are dumb."
The woman dragged him away several feet before he turned and joined her in walking to whatever shag house they planned to visit. Her laughter trailing after them both would haunt me the next few minutes, I was sure of it.
"Wait! You didn't-"
He disappeared around the corner. Mother and Father caught up with me, concern evident on their faces.
"That was far better than last year," Father supplied as we rejoined the street traffic. "A snack on the way home?" Mother gave a nod, but I couldn't focus on anything like that right now.
"Did you see how they did that visual effect?" I asked, earning a confused expression from both of them. Are they really going to act stupid? "The one where his arm turned to metal, and his body to stone? It looked so real!" I had significantly more questions than I had when the day started, but I kept it to a relevant one.
Father and Mother held each other's eyes for a long moment, before Mother reached over to touch a nearby streetlamp. "Cassian, he did turn to stone. And to metal."
"What?"
And just like that, her fingers shifted to become the same material as the street lamp, a silvery metal.
"What?!"
Father gestured for a nearby bench that was mostly empty. "Cassian, we knew you'd learn about this someday - everyone will. We thought it… best that you develop without worrying about the Gift. Not everyone affords their children the same opportunity to grow without fear."
Hang on. Hang on.
She just turned her fingers to metal and then back. That actor really did become stone, all for a show. A miracle used for a one-night shitty community play.
"The Gift is something most Osmosians develop. A few gain no additional abilities, while others have abilities that do not fit the mold of the majority. We call those Exceptions," Father explained with an admonishing look. "I do not have the Gift, but your mother does. Chances are strong that you will develop the Gift in time."
I was truly at a loss for words. "What… how does it work?"
"Let's not worry about that right now," Mother replied, hands hanging once more at her side, unchanged from flesh.
I was absolutely not going to live this down. "So, is that how the story went? Salimus Rex used his Gift or whatever to defeat the birdmen's leader?" I'd have to unpack what Mother just did later.
Father chuckled. "I'm sure it's got the spirit of the truth."
"Some say he was the first one with the Gift, but there are records from before that," Mother added. "The myth about him still rages to this day."
"Those aliens - are they still around?"
She looked thoughtful for a second. "No, Cassian - they cannot harm you. The way the story goes, in the early days of the Triarchy, they went on to defeat the aliens and drive them off the planet. They might still be out there, somewhere, but history tells us that they have not returned yet."
Father shook his head in agreement as he led our group through the throngs of people, domed street lamps providing enough light to navigate the busy thoroughfares. The smell of something close to funnel cake filled my nostrils, baking pastries fresh in the rack. "If there's anything you learn from us, Cassian, it's that history is bound to -"
Something beeped in his front pocket. In mild frustration, he pulled a device from his coat and spoke into it. "Jula, now is not a great time-"
The name surprised me. Aunt Jula had, to my knowledge, not spoken with her brother directly for years, and the last time was with bad news that they hid from me. News I could absolutely handle, but my parents refused to share. The lack of trust to know things was reasonable and frustrating, simultaneously.
They'd kept growing up and gaining superpowers from me. Something a vast majority of kids my age likely already know. How is any of that fair? Yeah - they might be dangerous, but so is a gun.
Mother placed a concerned hand on Father's shoulder. "Horatio, is there-"
Father brushed her off absently and pushed through the crowd to find a simplistic bench to sit. I was not about to let this moment go, so I darted as quickly as my uncoordinated body could and sat next to him.
"That can't be true. Clan Zenoan would have noticed-"
I tried to get close enough to hear the other side of the conversation, to hear Aunt Jula's voice, but I couldn't make it out. Father lightly palmed my chest to force me to sit.
"We're sitting ducks, then. We need to mobilize, we need to-" His eyes met mine upon the word 'mobilize,' widening with surprise that I could hear him. "Jula, give me a second. Cassian's listening."
A pause as he stood.
"I cannot let my son overhear-"
"Oh, I'm sure you'd love to tell him all about it, but we can't-"
"No, we're not going to go there-"
"I will contact you later."
Father put the device away and lightly glared at me. Mother finally made her final approach through the crowd, her own face askew with worry.
"I'm sorry," I tried, realizing that I made this important conversation with an estranged sister impossible to have and speak openly. "Is something really wrong? You seem scared."
Father's smile did not reach his eyes, a silent message shared with Mother from his body language. "No, son, there's nothing wrong. We should get a snack."
The man was tired. So tired. They'd never shown their kid how much the world affected them, and... I did not want to be stressful.
I realized at that moment that what my parents needed more than anything was peace and quiet. I'd pushed them a lot today to reveal what they know, to talk about what they don't.
I was fortunate to be born on an alien planet with parents who cared. If I kept pushing, I'd push them away.
LOS ANGELES
September 14, 13:51 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE ELEVEN
The boy could not help but badger his mom's friend for questions. He'd gotten to go with him to a special screening of a movie before it came out! All his friends down the street and all his cousins and, and all his preschool mates would be so jealous!
Yeah, the movie had been scary but the excitement over the whole thing just kept him thinking about it, even after all the ghosts tried to scare him.
"Gabriel, I did not see the ending coming. The man was dead the whole time!"
The man the boy'd only met once before nodded with a smile. "It was crazy, son."
Son.
For a second, the boy forgot where he was and wondered what his dad would think about a movie like this. It had been a while since he'd considered the man, but Mom always talked about him fondly. She'd not married anyone yet, and- oh, oh, oh!
"Are you gonna marry my mom?"
The man's tan skin turned paler. "I don't think so, Kyle."
"Boring," he muttered as he waited for Gabriel to escort him safely across the street. "You sure?"
"I'm sure."
Kyle was not sure he believed the man he'd only met tonight, but this was a man who looked trustworthy. Nice. Thoughtful. He'd be good to Mom.
"Why not? She's a catch."
Gabriel clutched the boy's hand and walked him safely across the crosswalk. Kyle couldn't help but notice how wet the man's palm was.
"I'm too busy for your mom, Kyle," he said quietly as they rounded the corner into Kyle's neighborhood. "I wish I'd been able to do more for you and your mom. Tonight, I mean. She wanted to join us, but she'd already, uh, made plans."
"What do you even do, Gabriel? Mom acted like she couldn't tell me."
A pause. "I work for the government. Have to travel a lot; haven't been back to LA in," Gabriel met Kyle's eyes, "years."
"The guvnemen?"
"Gov-ern-ment," he repeated. "The people in charge of everything you see. I help them out."
"Must be a nice job when you can score movie tickets early!" Kyle shouted. "When's the next one? Can I go, can I go, can I go?"
The man breathed heavily and said nothing for a long moment. "I'm not sure they'll be another one, s-son."
"Oh man."