The Energy Crusades

For my preciousssss

Abra

Here on Earth, they called us Descenders because of the way the lights from our spaceships lit up the night when we descended on the planet at the brink of its extinction. We were their saviors, coming to rescue them from the bleakness their world had become. It was a time on Earth when the sun didn
'
t shine, the oceans were lifeless, and most animals were extinct. A small human population survived by scratching out a meager existence from the remnants of what once was.

"What about the girl?" Astrid asked when I
'
d been silent too long. I stared at her a moment, noting the sadness in my sister
'
s face. She was pregnant again, this time with her fourth child. Her first three had all died by the time they were three years old.

We left Planet Danu and came to Earth as part of an experiment to breed with the human race. We learned to mask our alien traits in order to blend in with the population. We took human mates. We bore half human children. And in all our years of pretending to be one of them, we became a little human ourselves.

"The girl will be born to human parents after the birth of your fifth son. She will be a hybrid." The look of confusion on Astrid
'
s face was understandable. How could a human child be a hybrid? To us, to Descenders, a hybrid was the product of a Descender-human union.

"My fifth son?" My sister looked distraught. Too many of our children had died, and we hadn
'
t signed up for such losses. We were mating with humans in order to improve their race while sustaining our own. But there was something wrong between the genes of Descenders and humans, and I had buried five of my own children alongside my sister
'
s three. It wasn
'
t supposed to be a hostile takeover, but where is the peace in burying your own children? It was a cost neither of us was willing to bear any longer. We might have given in to despair if not for the promise of the girl with the purple eyes. She would be the solution.

The girl appeared to me in a dream. She floated into my thoughts as if I
'
d conjured her, an answer to what I
'
d been so desperately seeking. She would be the one — a new branch on the evolutionary tree.

"She will be the first of her kind," I said aloud, "the first human to exhibit traits rivaling our own. Our children are not going to die anymore, Sister."

Some children inexplicably survived the inter-breeding, but only a select few. Our government, the Reformation Republic, wanted to continue no matter the cost. The general population believed the deaths were attributed to a plague, some microbial illness infecting the planet randomly. The government claimed to have no cure. But I discovered their lie, and then I stole it. I pulled the vial from my pocket. The clear, viscous liquid swirled in a case encrypted with the information we needed to save our children.

"So it
'
s true then, they had the cure all along?" Astrid asked.

It was true. The knowledge of such a betrayal was the end of our allegiance to the Reformation. We spent some time inscribing the cure on all of the jewelry we had in our possession, symbols that would mean nothing to anyone else, but everything to us.

We began to form our plan. The Reformation required all children to join an Energy Crusade by the time they were eighteen. Such Crusades could last a lifetime and others, the more dangerous ones, could be much shorter. The higher the level of danger, the higher the energy payout, and energy was the only accepted currency on Earth. Astrid would become even more valuable to the Reformation. She would train Elite Crusaders, building an army under the very noses of those who had deceived us. With her help, I had faked my own death, leaving behind a husband who had no idea I was carrying our twins — the last children I would bear. As far as my government was concerned, I no longer existed. I would go underground and unite those who resisted the rule of the Descenders, biding my time until the girl came to us.

"How will I find her?" my sister asked, knowing we would soon have to part.

"You
'
ll find her, Astrid. Find her parents. A son will be born to them first, in the season of the leaves, after the birth of the son you are carrying now. The girl will come during the second season of the sun following his birth."

"Is there another piece to this puzzle?" Astrid persisted. She knew, she could tell there was something else.

"She has another half," I admitted, unable to keep anything from my sister. I could see the girl would have a male by her side, her equal.

"Her brother?" Astrid asked.

"No." I shook my head. "Someone she loves and not like a brother. Without him, she will not become the girl we need. They are the future of this planet. Of our planet," I added, for I considered Earth my home. I thought for a moment, trying to see into the future. "He is a hybrid, and not by chance." He
'
d be bred as a hybrid, I felt certain of it. She would be the first of her kind, and he, one of the first of his to survive.

Together, they would breed the first of a new race. "My sons will be hybrids. One of them will complete her destiny." Astrid was quite sure of herself. She patted her swollen belly.

"My son will be a hybrid too. He will be raised to love this girl." I locked eyes with my sister. I could feel her inside my head, trying to see my visions firsthand.

I touched my forehead to hers and could see real tears in her eyes. It was time for us to part.

I hugged my sister tightly and kissed her tears away.

I wouldn
'
t see her again for sixteen years.

Kaia

My dream was different this time. I didn
'
t spend it chasing the white haired lady as I did most nights. Instead, a memory from my childhood surfaced, bringing a familiar face into my restless nights.

"Come on, Kaia!" a young Ajax Baal beckoned me. He was as I remembered him, five years old and full of life. I took his little hand in my own and followed him around the cliffs bordering the University. In the dream, I was seventeen just as I was in real life, but Ajax was still a little boy. I followed him down the path leading to the beach. The ocean crashed against the shore in wild spurts, spraying us with seawater.

"Follow me," he insisted, tugging my arm. The cliffs skirting the shore boasted ragged openings of various sizes. He squeezed through a small one, and despite my larger size, I was able to follow him. We were engulfed in darkness. I couldn
'
t see my feet in front of me, but Ajax tightened his grip and we continued on. The darkness gave way to a dim light up ahead. We started to follow it, down passageways and over puddles of water as it moved at a steady pace some meters in front of us. At times we lost sight of it as the caves twisted and turned, but we
'
d find it again, and keep going. After what seemed like many hours of following the light, we came to a passageway containing a stream of water. It lapped against our shoes while the light danced ahead of us. Ajax started to walk into the water but I tugged his hand.

"Wait, I don
'
t know if I want to go any further," I told him. My voice sounded small, like a little girl
'
s, frightened and unsure.

"It
'
s okay," Ajax soothed me, "I
'
ll protect you." I trusted him and followed him into the water, even though it didn
'
t make sense. He was only five and I was seventeen. I should have been the one to protect him.

The water got deeper and eventually we had to swim. Somehow, we could swim and hold hands at the same time. When the current became strong enough, we turned on our backs and let it carry us, keeping our physical connection all the while.

At last, we floated to shore at the edge of a great cavern. We began to walk, following the light, but the cavern seemed endless. There were people in there, busily going about their business and paying us no mind as we walked among them. Some
worked
at carving sleeping quarters out of the rock walls of the cavern; others stored food in the cool recesses branching off of the cavern itself. Furniture was shaped from boulders, the edges softening while human hands tamed their unwieldy curves.

"What is this place?" I whispered to Ajax, a knot of worry forming in my stomach. "Do these people live here?" In my dream, I either didn
'
t remember the rumors of people living underground and off the Grids, or I didn
'
t know about them at all. It appeared to me they were making the space livable, preparing for life away from the sun.

"It
'
s as big as a University!" Ajax exclaimed next to me. The immense size of the cavern was enough to allow an army of people to live comfortably, and we were only seeing a part of it. I didn
'
t know why the sight of it
upset me
, but the worry in my stomach grew. Ajax squeezed my hand as if he sensed the feeling, and with the gesture, a bit of my apprehension receded.

We walked farther and found ourselves outside once more. The walls of the cavern disappeared and we were on the beach again, but a different one, with towering cliffs and an enormous building perched several meters above our heads. Again, I let Ajax lead me as we made our way toward the structure.

The building was ancient. It was an old wooden behemoth built in the days before the Great Oil Wars. All the windows were shattered and the glass lay in jagged pieces at its base. We stepped carefully around it, trying to find an entrance, the shards of glass discouraging any thought of crawling through the windows. When we did find a door, it was half off its hinges and warped from the wet, salty air. Ajax began to push against it, but I tugged his hand, pulling him away.

"I don
'
t want to go in there," I admitted, the unease inside of me inescapable now. Cold sweat trickled down my forehead.

"I
'
ll protect you, Kai," the little boy, Ajax, said again, tightening his hold on my hand. Still, I hesitated. Despite the dilapidated state, there was something hopeful about the place. We could hear things from the interior of the building, the sound of people working, perhaps cleaning up the space. They were happy sounds, peaceful. The people inside were content.

"What if we don
'
t find our way out again?" I asked, looking down into his big, blue eyes.

"It
'
s okay," he assured me, "we
'
re together." He shoved his shoulder against the door again and it gave way suddenly, causing him to stumble. He fell forward and though I tried to keep a firm grasp on his hand, I couldn
'
t. The swiftness of his fall broke the connection between us and the dream ended. I sat up in bed, heart pounding as I tried to hold onto the dream, but it slipped through my memory like sand through a sieve. I couldn
'
t hold it inside.

"Are you okay?" I heard my roommate mutter from the bed next to mine. Alize was used to my erratic dreams.

"Go back to sleep," I urged. There was a feeling inside of me, one I wanted desperately to remember. I hadn
'
t dreamed of the white haired lady, but of someone else. I couldn
'
t remember who it was who made my heart race with joy. The memory of it left me lonely, as if I
'
d lost something I loved, and the taste of saltwater lingered on my tongue.