The Blueshifters (Blueshifter Series Book 1) (2 page)

“The box, Mary. The box. Remember?” She slowly sank down,
seating himself on the edge of the tub, voluminous steam swirling
everywhere. A dim realization began to dawn.

“No, no. . . ”

“Let's not make a fuss. Come with me now. Give me my due.”

“
But
you don't understand. I never opened the box.”

“
What
do you mean you never opened the box? Everyone always opens the box.”

“
Well,
I didn't. Therefore, I don't owe you anything. Have a look for
yourself. And furthermore, I will never open that box. I don
'
t
know what I was thinking when I took it, but you can have it. Back.
I'll go get it for you.” The reflection stared at her
dispassionately and said nothing. She went to the bedroom and opened
the top drawer to her dresser and took out the bright red lacquer
box, about half the size of a shoe box. She set it on the counter in
front of the mirror.

“I have nightmares and terrible headaches every night and I've
felt sick to my stomach for weeks. It's this thing. It's cursed. Take
it!” At this the reflection laughed.

“Some people are made of stronger stuff than you. If you have
nightmares it is because of your own guilt. Coward! Who would turn
away from the chance of such power but a frightened fool? Control of
all that you see is only at your fingertips. All you have to do is
open it, Mary,” it said. Mary detected an edge in its voice.
She shook her head. The voice softened.

“Come, now. Hold out your hand and touch the mirror once
again.” The voice became quieter, hissing like a snake. Mary
felt a force pushing down on her willing her to disobey her own mind.
She was now fully terrified. The powers of the red box and the
parameters of the moral box she was in were finally coming into
focus.

“No!” She repeated stubbornly, her voice trembling. The
reflection's eyes changed. The brown pupils turned black and became
unusually large, like a cat's eyes in the dark, full of predatory
malice.

“I will come at a later time. Take care.” The reflection
smiled broadly. It was a million-watt smile, bright as a Las Vegas
night. A smile that was not reflected in the eyes. It would come
again, of that she had no doubt. She had the perceptive power to see
it and others in mirrors and this perceptive power tormented her.
Accepting the box – and the power offered with it was a
mistake. There was no other alternative.

She would have to burn it.

Episode 4 – T

Andrew was finally home from a long day at the store with a million
things on his mind, the foremost one he was about to re-examine
tonight. He threw his coat and keys on the couch and went to the desk
and picked up the letter again. He'd been corresponding with a
mysterious person off and on for nearly a year now. Andrew owned a
tiny bookstore and he sold used science fiction, fantasy books, and
some horror, though he was not a fan of those and after some of the
things revealed to him recently horror now disturbed him. It was a
weird “thing” with him, nothing personal against horror.

He barely kept the bookstore afloat but one day he had received a
mysterious letter from a person named T telling him that his store
was a portal to another place and then told him, showed him, exactly
how this was so. It had shocked and intrigued Andrew, but this was
the truth. T had offered a felicitous arrangement. T would help keep
the store afloat.

It really was a portal, a wormhole. He was warned that it needed to
be protected from the others.

“What others?” He'd asked. He found out, to his fright,
that these “others” were all over the place, trying to
overtake the world and that they had been here for a long time. They
looked human. They seemed human, but they were not human. He and T
were now busy trying to fix the portal and improve it so that it
would work reliably, because as of now it did not, and also to make
sure it remained hidden from The Others. The evil ones. T had seemed
to know so much about these things. It was as if this was just out of
one of the many books he sold in his store. So many of them had
gotten here through portals like it but T had said that he and others
he knew long ago had destroyed many of these portals or found a way
to close them off, but that was why so many others had gotten here in
the first place. They were in a dash to hide any other found portals.
Dangerous work. He had to admit he got a thrill from it all, even
though he had a hard time sleeping now that he knew what he knew. T
contacted him the old fashioned way. Through written letters. He
rather liked  letters by hand. No one ever did that. Except T.
He often wondered if T was a time-traveler. Or something else. He had
never seen T before. The letter read:

Andrew,

You must take this most seriously. It is not a game. It is real
and those of us who are rebelling against this are in danger of
execution and all humans are in danger of extermination. Just because
we have closed up the portals does not mean that humankind is safe.
They cannot act directly because they are not as powerful as they
thought they would be, yet, but the day is coming when they will
become far more powerful than they are now. Then they will not have
to use subterfuge. They are evil, Andrew. Make no mistake about it.
They are poisonous and insidious. There were several times in history
when they nearly succeeded in wiping humanity out. The World Wars
were the most recent examples. They use your own weaknesses and
imperfections to try to engineer the destruction of Man and Man has
shown that if they only keep trying they may succeed. Evil, unlike
Good, needs no one to champion its cause. It triumphs because of a
universal truth: everyone has darkness within and it is inherent and
its call is seductive. It is so easy to be wicked and men would
rather be seduced by it than fight against it. I should know; I
have been educated by a master temptress and I have paid dearly for
it. Remember this Andrew. Remember it. Do not tarry in your decision
too long.

-
T

His heart beat quickly. Everything he looked at, smelled, touched
could have been put there to seduce and blind him by the “others”.
Now was as good a time as any to put the monumental plan in motion.
Andrew
was
not sure he was
ready, but T was pushing him and the things he had seen only begged
the question: why did he continue to sit on his hands? The group had
to be formed. He got out a piece of paper and a pen and wrote T back:

T,

You were right all along. It is just that I have meager resources
and I am nothing but a scared, confused bookseller with a bum leg.
You are asking an underachiever who can barely run his own business
in the black to help you save the world. Yet, it is my world. Let's
do it. Let's get the group together. If you say there are others like
me who know what is happening, we must get to know who we all are to
stop them. My bookstore can be used as headquarters.

Episode 5 – Sensing
Things

“Can you see now?” Came the gentle voice again. Dan
grimaced, he felt bloated and sluggish but not violently ill.

“I can't see anything. I can. . . I sense or feel things.”

“Tell me what you sense.”

“I hear voices that come unbidden. I don't know where they come
from. Like radio waves from far away. I can see outlines on rare
occasions of people in red light halos. The people in these halos
frighten me for some reason. Don't know why.”

“Do these sensations cause you pain?”

“Sometimes. More fatigue than pain. Where am I? Who are you? I
was. . .I was in the hospital-”

“You are home now. You were rescued some weeks ago from the
river. These sensations, the “sickness” are the start of
a power developing inside you, Dan. A power to discern the light from
the darkness. You are one of the first ones that I have seen that has
this ability out in the wild.”

“In the wild?”

“By yourself in the world with no one to guide you. Of the few
I've seen with the power of discernment the power itself destroys
them or they are destroyed before they are powerful enough to wield
it.” Dan shifted in alarm. He tried to remove his blindfold,
but his hands felt numb and weak.

“What do you mean destroyed?”

“Relax. Relax Dan. I will not harm you.” The voice
soothed. He felt it like a breeze caressing his raw nerves and he
settled down. Whoever it was, the Voice they wielded had some sort of
power.

“I mean, that there are others who do not want you to see them.
The ones in red. Your power was released under stress. That is
usually how it happens. By accident. When I look at you Dan I see a
halo around you too. A blue light. The light of humans. The Others,
they are not. . . .human. They look, act and behave like humans. They
are very good at it because they have been here on earth for a very
long time. But they are a cancer and that cancer looks like red halo
light. You can now see them and you will be able to sense them more
often. There are other levels to this ability Dan.”

“What levels?”

“Fighting. All will come in time. Just rest your mind and
continue sensing and feeling your way through the darkness with the
blindfold on. Your eyes are important, but I want you to learn how to
see with more than just your eyes. The whole world is lost and blind
because they only see with their eyes.” He heard footsteps
falling softly away as whoever it was – his captor or helper –
left the room.

Dan did not know what to say or how to proceed. He still wasn't
entirely sure he was not dreaming. He obeyed and tried again,
sensing. Suddenly a siren blared out of the background noise of the
day – he guessed it was daytime from all the ambient background
noise sifting through – and it disrupted his concentration. He
put his hands to his ears and blocked it out with difficulty until
the siren died away and then tried again. He sensed immediately
someone beside him and jumped.

“Good. Good. You knew I was here. I was looking for that. You
can take the blindfold off for now.” Dan hesitated at first,
then tore it off. There was a tall man standing by the bed. His bed.
With deep gray eyes, impossibly pale with a wide-set mouth and white
hair. He wore a long black coat.

“My bones, they were broken. My back!” Dan grabbed it,
but there was no pain. ”I remember someone. Red-Rag.” The
man nodded.

“Yes. They tried to break you, those hoodlums. Thralls of the
redshifters. The real danger, believe it or not, is not them. It is
what has been done to them. They were once men, like you and for all
intents and purposes, they still are on the outside. But those
fellows have been turned into thralls. That is the intent of the
redshifters for some of humankind. To take over in every way.”
Dan stared at him intensely until he began to sweat. There was no
sense in questioning the strangeness in this situation and the fact
that he had no real idea who this man was because life had radically
changed when he was thrown into the river. He proceeded on.

“What are redshifters?”

“The ones who have infiltrated human culture and populations.
The Others. The ones who want to change, consume and destroy humanity
for their own purposes. The problem is that we do not know what their
ultimate purpose is and why they want to do what they want to do. I
and others are still discovering this as we go. We only know that
they mean you great harm.”

“And. . . who are you?” Dan asked, sitting back and
watching him closely.

“A helper. I will tell you more later when you meet the others
on the team I am putting together.”

“Team?”

“The one I told you about?”

“Ah. Right. Other people like me.” Dan scanned the man
again. He felt no sinister vibe or danger from this man at all and he
had scanned and studied his feelings around him for some days now. He
looked outside. The day was overcast and cast a pall gray over
everything.

“Well, if I am to meet with your team-”

“You are to be the leader of this team. If you wish.”

“Oh. Well. I think I can find a way to handle that if I have
this great power, as you say. But if I am to meet this team of people
you put together and lead them, it seems I need to at least know your
name.” The man gazed serenely at him before answering.

“I will be meeting with some of the others later this week, to
gather them together. Then I must find a safe haven for you all to
meet. I think I may have found such a place. And my name is
Trillion.”

Episode 6 – The
Meeting

Daniel
sat back and tried to relax his muscles. They were still sore from
his deathly ordeal, but his recovery had come quickly. He had not
seen Trillion in about a week. He felt and even heard things with
more regularity now. He was on his way to a bookstore to meet the
team.

The
team consisting of people who were like him. They could see the
beings that had infiltrated human society. Redshifters, Trillion had
called them. The Others.

The
passed by a the Glass, a small and popular music venue. Someone big
was in town. There was an impossible line snaking all the way around
the block. The taxi rounded the corner a block down toward a tiny,
rundown looking building crammed in between a pub and an old
pharmacy. It was pouring rain and Dan's senses were on high alert.
Hard to get used to. His feelings of helplessness and out-of-control
experiences had gone away. The blackouts, the feelings of flying.
Gone. These were burgeoning aspects of his talent of discernment.
Thankfully that phase was gone.