Transcending the Legacy (7 page)

- Kyoto, Japan

The sound of yelling, gunfire, and blood-curdling screams are dulled as I let my mind escape far away from this moment.

* * *

I knew things would be different when I returned. I assumed they would be in my favor, but I was wrong. As soon as I hit the tile in that Dobrian facility, death began to settle within me. The suctioning boom of the wormhole sealing behind me brought me to full attention, eyes wide and searching my surroundings for the others.

I only stopped Sam and Sebastian temporarily beyond the veil and I hoped I had
finished the task I was intended by my father, ending Jesca Gershon Kahn. Her father, Ezra was a bonus kill. His bloodline was tainted long before him when his ancestors committed to guard and protect the ones that carried this legacy. A legacy created to prevent our world and the inhabitants from reaching their maximum potential. All of them were tainted, blind of what we could become if we let the evolution take hold.

Feeling my throat beginning to spasm, I see Ezra, Sebastian, Sam, Jesca, Nate, and Xander splayed out on the ground, a visible haze of dust floating in the air above them once stirred by the vortex. I watch each of the bodies for movement. They are alive, breathing
, but unconscious.

I shove off from the ground expecting it to be effortless, but my arms can barely lift my chest from the ground without the support of my knees; I
use them as leverage to get my body most of the way up. I pinch my eyes closed in pain from the vertigo and splitting headache.

I try swallowing to sooth the tension in the back of my throat, but I have no saliva. My mouth is drying up! I have to get up, get water and find help! All of a sudden,
I see movement; it’s Sebastian. As soon as I see him, my vision begins to blur and a feeble wheeze catches in my throat. I cough softly to clear the feeling of my throat tightening, but it only leads to a fiery and excruciating assault on my esophagus upon inhale. Using my hands to push myself to stand, I wobble on my two feet and stumble, almost falling again. I clutch the open doorway ahead of me. Every breath I take results in a horrific sound; the sound of the raw chaffing substance coursing along my esophagus, within my lungs, flowing throughout my body.

The less I breathe, the longer I
will last.

I slowly fill my lungs with
world’s scorching ingredient, hold it within, and begin to run. At first, I stumble, but then my adrenaline kicks in and I am racing through hallways, checking doors along the way while releasing an inkling of the deadly substance every few feet.

That is one release. Don’t be wasteful
, Michael.

The less I breathe, the longer I last
, becomes my mantra as I search for an escape.

Every knob I turn is locked, e
very hallway dimly lit with yellowing lights. The farther I walk and stumble, the white tile floors become concrete.

I release another small sliver of life from my lungs before reaching for the iron doors ahead of me. I pull them expecting to be rejected, but instead they open.
The hallway is dark and unkempt like the others, but I feel like this is the one that is going to take me out of this place. The flat, level ground begins to rise in elevation and the urge to breathe out a little more tears at my psyche.

Internally, I scold myself, “No,
don’t do it, Michael!”

My sight is in and out, blurring and distorting, but not before I see two corroded iron doors barred with a long metal pipe.
This has to be out.

My legs pump as I rush
toward the doors, hitting it with my body and lifting up on the long metal pipe at the same time. The metal pipe gives, but it takes every ounce of energy and I can’t hold in my breath any longer.

I release it all, then breath in new poison uncontrollably, my body needing anything to continue. My throat immediately constricts, then spasms, allowing a small amount
of substance into my lungs. I hold in what little supply I receive and fall into the two doors, hoping they give way and release me.

The metal gives and I am freed into an empty alley.
I slide my body against the wall, keep my eyes focused on my feet leading me along the black asphalt. Leaning my head against the brick wall, I look for life; no people, no cars passing, nothing. I am feeling my body slow, depleted of all energy. My heart is pumping hard, working on little fuel now, but I still try to yell. “Help!”

It is weak and likely no one heard it. I try again, projecting my voice. “Help!”

I stop sliding forward and stare at the alley opening, waiting for someone, anyone to come around either corner. The lids of my eyes take on a mind of their own and slowly fall closed. I let my body slide down the wall and breathe freely, glutting my body with the poison air. The once quickened sound of my heart begins to slow, leaving room for me to hear the deafening silence of this tainted world. Is this the world my father Jaeger Sanderson pictured?

“Is it father?” I hiss.

Just as the Onoch’s had a legacy to protect this meek and ordinary world, my family had a legacy driven to expand and make this ordinary world superior. Would it be? I try to open my eyes again, trying to take in a glimpse of what the world has become, but my body fails me. I think of the beings that have descended beyond the veil and into our world. They had promised me and my fellowship salvation and protection for aiding their passage. Why are they not saving me now? Among the sound of my slowing heart, my ragged, wheezing gasps, I hear a low, patterned hum.

Hum.

Hum.

Hum.

Hum.

I try to concentrate on
the patterned sound to ignore every scorching breath I take. The scratchy croak I release is slowing, my body enforcing its own shut down.

* * *

The feeling of cold metal on my back wakes me again. I swallow expecting the pain, but it doesn’t rise in my throat like before. I feel a mask over my face as I become more alert. Instinctively I reach for it to pull it away, but before I can a strong hand covers mine keeping me from removing it. “You don’t want to do that. Leave it,” says the man hovering over me.

I try to sit up
, but once again, the man’s strong hold holds me down. I meet his almond shaped eyes as he says calming, “Just breathe.”

I inhale the oxygen pumping through the mask deeply and I feel his arms release mine.
He trusts that I won’t try to escape now that I am breathing air. Another man comes to stand on the other side of me. He looks familiar. Were they Sondians? Dobrians? How are they able to breathe the tainted air that suffocates me? “Who are you?” I ask through the plastic mask.

The man with the crossed arms speaks first. “Michi.”

He nods to the man across from him, hovering over me and says, “This is Katsuro.”

Katsuro speaks in
native Japanese through his gruff sigh then chides me in English, “Where are Sam and Corinna?”

How does this man know Sam and Corinna and what makes him think I know them?
Seemingly reading my questioning thought he asks, “You don’t remember me do you?”

I shake my head slowly trying to think back to my connections in Japan, but my mind is scrambled.
I can’t pin point where I know him from. Katsuro looks up at Michi and scoffs, “So much for servitude. Bastard.”

Michi’s eyes leave Katsuro’s and glare back at me. “It is ironic to see you in this predicament
, Michael. You see, I am a Dobrian. You do not know me. But, Katsuro, he was one of your major Sondian connections here in Japan. Used to aid in mass abductions and enforce Sondian implantations.”

The abductions.
I remember enforcing them through handlers. I look at Katsuro and try to remember his face. My mind is so cluttered suddenly, I draw a blank.

“I can’t remember,” I mumble.

Katsuro chimes in sarcastically, “Another side effect of the air the unimplanted breathe in our redesigned world.”
He moves in closer to me and says, “You had Sam Crest and Corinna Cain working my club to recruit unknowing men and women slated for Sonidian implants. Last I heard, you were murdered.”

He continues
his rant in Japanese.

Michi growls and hisses words at him in their native tongue, forcing him to clam up immediately.

I clear my throat. “I was beyond our world, our universe. I do remember escaping death and passing through the wormhole during the intersection.”

Strangely enough, I can remember being beyond the veil perfectly. “I made a pact with the beings beyond the veil of our universe.
I granted them passage to our universe and world as long as they protected me.” I quickly correct myself, “Us. I mean us.”

Katsuro’s face reddens as he yells, “You gave up our world
, you selfish idiot!”

Michi places his hand on Katsuro’s chest, a warning to back off. Katsuro backs away and begins to pace, mumbling in Japanese again.

Michi looks back down at me as he says to Katsuro,
“Doing that would make us just as bad as him. We need to give him the choice.”

Confused by his words I ask, “Choice for what?”

Michi says flatly, “To be implanted.”

“I’m already implanted,” I say correcting them.

Michi shakes his head, “Not with the modified Copula.”

Modified? What does he mean modified?

Michi continues to speak, “The intersection has altered our climate and shifted the amounts of trace elements in our world.
The air we breathe is no longer as oxygenated as our bodies need.”

He points to the mask on my face. “There is only a small supply left of that. Not enough for us to survive.”

I look at Katsuro, standing their stoically watching me breathe in this Dobrian oxygen and can only wonder why he caved to the Dobrian fellowship. I hiss at him, “Traitor.”

Katsuro lunges forward,
takes hold of my shirt, and pulls me upright. He yells lividly, “Traitor? You have betrayed your race, you son of a bitch!” He releases me hard to the gurney and snickers, “You Believed they would be loyal to you, respect our race? They aren’t going to grant you safety, you stupid man. No one is safe! Not even you!”

Michi holds his composure as he says
evenly, “Those beings that you granted passage, they have not come to our world to co-habitate. They have been taking humans and consuming them. Killing the other life forms that have tried to seek shelter in our world during the intersection. Those beings you entrusted are making us slaves to use as assassins wired to destroy humankind. Sondians, Dobrians, average civilians, they don’t discriminate. The Sondians and Dobrians fellowships are no longer divided. After the first wave of the climate shift, then trace element shift…”

Element shift, Climate changes, alterations, a
new modified Copula, the beings killing us...I put each piece together.

Michi pauses, letting me work through the logic of how our world, our environment had evolved the
n dissolved the lines between the warring fellowships.

He continues, “
The shutdown of every government run entity in the world was occurring. We needed to step in to try and save as many as we could.”

I continued to listen to Michi relay details of how our world has changed, evolved, how the beings from beyond the veil have invaded us, how a new modified Copula via the Dobrian fellowship has saved the
majority of the humans on the Earth by implanting the civilians and reimplanting the fallen Sondians. I ask about Gabriel Griffin, wondering if he has accepted re-implantation.

Katsuro replies, “He killed himself after the first climate and element shift.
When he was gone, the government took that as a sign that there was no hope.”

Katsuro looks at Michi. “Death began claiming all of us faster. Michi and a team came to us, offered us asylum.
They told us about the modified Copula and the need of implantation to adapt to the changes and alterations of our world’s environment. From that moment on, we were no longer divided by opposing fellowships. We became a united race on a mission to save as many human lives as possible.”