The Watchers: A Space Opera Novella (8 page)

Polston has shattered
, I tell her. It seems important.
Her remnants flutter aimlessly through the universe
.

Which universe
? That edge again.

It seems an obvious question, but I remember Wisdom often asks seemingly obvious questions.
This one
. What other one is there?

Her eyes widen, but she schools herself before asking.
Are we being Watched
?

Are we?
No, I do not think so
. But this is a dream; what does being Watched mean in a dream?
Wisdom, when will I wake
?

Again she tries to master herself before responding. But I can feel her disquiet grow at the question, her fear for me, born from the love of a guardian.
Tell me what you see, when you look into yourself
.

I tell her about the gray dome with the patchwork ceiling. I describe the jagged lines that don’t quite match, with gaps between them.

A great sadness wells up inside her and leaks out her eyes.
Oh, Emre, what you have done
?

I do not know, Wisdom
.

How many times did you split
? When I don’t answer, when I can’t remember, she screams in my mind.
How many times did you split
!

I look at all the different patches, jammed into one another, fighting to seal themselves to one another.
At least thousands of times. Probably so much more, I feel … incomplete
.

The dome warps and bends as I probe it from the inside. The gaps grow large in some places. I can see through to some sort of wall. It blocks me in. It’s weakening, unraveling in places. There’s too few threads.

The probing has exacerbated the weakness in the wall. It begins to unravel.
Wisdom, the wall is failing
.

Emre
— She struggles to remain calm.

Goodbye, Wisdom
.

Emre, no—
!

The jagged lines burst inward. The gray patches explode downward, into the void.

SUMIKO SITS
in the armored vehicle, her head hanging down, weighted by the loss of her only son and Karon.
Where did Karon go
? she wonders. Her dark hair flows down past her, bounces into her chin as the vehicle rocks from the motion, lightly scratching against her neck. Karon used to love her hair; she wanted to cut it short once for easier maintenance, but he begged her not to.

Why did he leave me
?

He had said he was going for help, but that was forever ago—before they shut the doors to the armored vehicle, cutting off the clamor of the city, cutting off Branden’s cries. It was before she heard the other vehicles start to leave one by one. It was before the armored vehicle began its journey, however long ago.

The vehicle comes to a stop. Sumiko prepares herself. Karon had said to remain calm, make them complacent. Inherent in that, is to then exploit it. She willed herself to appear calm, while preparing to attack—
No
, a new lightly tilted voice says in her mind. It wasn’t Karon, it was female. But she spoke in her head the same way that Karon had been talking to her.
Do not attack the policeman coming to free your bonds
.

The back doors open. A single policeman climbs in and steps in front of Sumiko.
Is it my imagination or does he look glazed
? Sumiko asks herself.

He waves the reverse-magnetizer, then bends down to remove the cuffs from Sumiko without looking her in the eye.

Now leave
, the woman’s voice commands.

And go where
?

Walk down to the end of the street. Once there, there will be a vehicle waiting with three men and your son
.

Sumiko jumps out of the armored vehicle and starts walking confidently, nonchalantly so as to not draw attention to herself. She sees the vehicle immediately, a white standard auto-passenger. The surrounding street becomes a blur; she has only tunnel vision to her destination.

She tries hard to regulate her pace, to step normally over the concrete sidewalks, to feel the minute grooves beneath her thin-soled shoes. But when the door opens and she sees Branden cradled in a man’s arms, she runs, her feet slapping hard against the concrete,
whack-whack-whack
, the sound lost in her single-minded focus.

And then he’s in her arms, cradled to her breast as she sits in the auto-passenger. The man that had opened the door gets in, and the vehicle drives off. In a vehicle with three strange men, Sumiko without thought takes out her breast and begins to feed Branden. She doesn’t feel bashful—she feels proud, she feels complete.

No one says anything as she feeds. The moment too powerful to interrupt. When Branden has had his fill, sleeping happily back in his mother’s arms a voice breaks into them all.

To the free people of the Ancillary Universe
, the woman’s voice from before says,
you are not alone
—
Sumiko exchanges glances with the other men—they hear it too. Sumiko looks out the window, people are stopping in the street, looking around, looking at each other, bewildered.

You were once members of the Prime Universe, but were shuttled into the Ancillary Universe as test subjects against your will and your knowledge. I have given your key scientists across your universe the knowledge of the Watch. It is technology that you will need to ensure your protection. It is an asymmetrical threat, symmetrical strength is your only option. Good luck
.

The city is silent. Slowly, people start to breathe, ask one another what just happened. Sumiko holds a sleeping Branden and wonders if he heard it too. What did it mean? Who was that voice? Where is Karon? Was he a part of this?

Sumiko’s head whirls with questions; then she realizes she can ask, that perhaps she’s the only one that has talked to this woman before and Karon.
What is going on
? she asks in her head in the way she would have of Karon.

The woman’s voice answers almost immediately,
The Watch technology represents a power unlike any other in existence. The only option is to level the playing field, take away the Regency’s advantage
.

Branden snuggles closer. Sumiko doesn’t know what to do with that explanation, where to start. She doesn’t know what all this means, or what the future will hold.

But she is thankful to have her son back, his warm body tucked in close to hers where it belongs. A question comes to her mind unbidden,
Why are you helping me
?

An answer isn’t immediate. Sumiko begins to think the woman’s voice isn’t going to answer when she finally says,
A part of your son … reminds me of an old friend. Raise him well
. Then the voice is gone.

BRANDEN IS SATIATED, and sleeps warmly snuggled up against a soft chest, the chest he had just fed from. The rhythmic heartbeats within lullabying him into a deep sleep. It’s her, he knows, the one right from the beginning. She smells of perspiration, and he feels her long dark hair resting comfortably over him.

Deep, deep down, in a dormant part of his consciousness that will never wake, only feel, only experience, lay the barest sliver of an extra shard of consciousness. The warm, overwhelming contented feelings reminding it of an echo of a sharp, spicy floral scent. They remind it of a ghost of sky-green eyes.

He was home.

The End

WHAT’S NEXT?

If you enjoy science fiction and heist and con stories, then may I humbly suggest picking up
Underwater Restorations
next. It’s a futuristic science fiction series centered around a heist and con team, led by the clever and bold Isa Schmidt. The first story was published in
Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine
show and has been re-released (cover, blurb, and
FREE PREVIEW here
). The first full length Under Restorations novel is set to be released in early Winter 2015,
sign up to the newsletter
to be notified when it first becomes available!

Sunken City Capers Debuts October 2016!

Sunken City Capers is an exciting new urban science fiction heist series for fans of Ocean’s Eleven and strong, smart-ass female protagonists.

Blurb for
The SolidState Shuffle: Sunken City Capers Book 1
debuting October 2016:

After cracking an underwater vault in their first major job in the Seattle Isles, Isa and her crew think they’re on easy street again—that is, if they can figure out what it is exactly they stole. A question, they soon learn, where their very lives hang in the balance.

Thrust into a high-stakes game of subterfuge and deception by the local mob Boss, Isa and her crew must scramble to unravel the mystery of what is they stole while unseen forces move against them.

Harried. Threatened at every turn. Isa and her crew must stay one step ahead to stay alive.

But it’s not theft if you put it back. Right?

Click here to read a free preview of
Underwater Restorations: A Sunken City Novelette
(available now), first published in
Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show
.

Interested in an e-Advance Reader Copy (eARC) prior to October 2016 in exchange for an honest review on Amazon?
Sign up here!
Please note the eARC will only be available in .mobi format which can be read on all Kindles and through all other devices on the Amazon Kindle app.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Word-of-mouth and reviews are vital for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed reading this story, please consider leaving a review wherever you purchased it. Taking a moment to leave a few lines sharing your thoughts would be helpful for other readers and very much appreciated. Thank you for reading!

Jeffrey A. Ballard currently releases a new story every other month. If you want to be the first to know when a new story becomes available (and receive a free exclusive story available only to newsletter subscribers and occasional other goodies) you can sign up for his mailing list at:
http://tinyurl.com/jaballard
. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

ALSO BY JEFFREY A. BALLARD

The Oracle Algorithm
(Novel)

The Bear that Painted the Stars
(Novella)

Underwater Restorations: A Sunken City Capers Novelette

The Highlight of a Life
(Short Story)

Vacationing Offworld
(Collection)

Jeffrey A. Ballard is a nomadic Yankee that currently lives in the Texas Hill Country. A long time fascination with the ocean lead him into academia, where he happily spends his days playing scientist and spends his nights and early mornings writing about the science he wished existed. His science fiction has appeared in
Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show
and
Fiction River: Time Streams
to date. You can learn about new releases, sign up for his newsletter and connect with Jeffrey at
www.jaballard.com
.

Available Now!