The New Frontier Read online

  “Then the creatures found out the reverse was possible, too,” Raja interrupted. “They found they could control us. The more crystals they consumed, the easier it was to control us.”

  Ankit stood straight, fumbling for something in his front breast pocket. He pulled out a rectangular object that resembled one of the girls’ phones.

  “May I? This will explain a lot,” he said, holding the device in the palms of his hands.

  “What is it? I’m not sure what its going to do …” Lauren stopped herself mid-sentence as their surroundings transformed into another world.

  In an instant, everything swirled, changing to a scene from a distant galaxy. Images flashed before the girls, depicting a few snippets of history from the Zeb culture. But more than that, they could feel the thoughts and pains of the Zebs they saw.

  They took a mini-journey from when the Zebs first began herding the Gr-awl-toltz, to modifying their DNA, to eventual domination by the monsters. The rush of emotions overwhelmed the girls when the images stopped. It wasn’t enough information to know their exact history, as the images blurred from their memories immediately after they experienced them, but the emotions remained.

  Lauren asked, “What in the world did you just do?”

  “Remember the nanobots we told you about?” Ankit asked. “They can hijack your senses. Using this device, we can show you anything.”

  This time Julia pounded on the side of her head as if trying to get water out of her ear. “Wow. I never could have imagined. I’m not sure I like having those things in my head.”

  “Well, what about the other Zebs? Can’t they use that to get us?” Lauren asked.

  “No, the nanobots only have a very short range. And the Gr-awl-toltz can only sense and control emotions. It can’t see you,” Raja answered.

  “The Gr-awl-toltz are monsters. When they have no more use for you, they destroy you by overloading your mind with shrieking pain, eventually killing you,” Ankit added. “Or they’ll turn your own people against you to do the dirty work.”

  Julia frowned, shivering. “That sounds awful …”

  After thinking for a second, Lauren asked, “What are these crystals and how did they get here?”

  “The crystals—that was our undoing,” Raja snarled.

  “The crystals are organic crystalline structures we created in our world,” Ankit continued. “You see, your solar system isn’t that different than ours. As with here, our crystals grow in our asteroid belt. We seed them, and they grow. Then we farm them like you do, although you don’t know you do it. When we first came here, we seeded your asteroid belt and they’ve been growing since then.”

  “How did these creatures get here?” Lauren asked.

  “We’ve known about your civilization for some time. Radio waves, television, they all reach our solar system. They’re not easily detectable, but we found them years ago. Our solar system is about 75 light years away,” Ankit explained.

  “We studied your solar system, finding it resembled ours—rocky planets close to a warm sun, gas giants, and, importantly, the asteroid belt on the fringes,” Ankit said.

  “Immediately, the Gr-awl-toltz found out and sent us out here to seed your asteroid belt. We were to establish a base, and then take control of Cielo.” Ankit stopped, looking at the girls.

  Lauren felt a tingle run up and down her spine. She’d had no idea how complicated the problem was and how grave the situation was.

  “For us, it’s different than it is for you,” Ankit explained. “When we are under its control, we can think and know exactly what we are doing, but we can’t resist. For you humans, you’re blind to the atrocities it makes you do. When humans are under control and it tells you to do something, you block it out of your memory. I wish we could do that, too.”

  Raja continued, “We found that the further away you are from them, the less control they have. Some of our people broke free. They live beyond their control. Your treatment can help them.”

  Looking up, Julia asked, “How do you mean?”

  “The treatment—with it, we can resist. We can get close enough to the monsters to strike!” Raja declared, raising his voice and hitting his fist in the palm of his other hand.

  “Yes, with the treatment, we have hope!” Ankit confirmed.

  Lauren looked at them, squinting one eye, then folded her arms in front of her chest.

  Lauren felt a new kinship with these alien beings now that she understood their century-long plight. Realizing they were still standing in the hallway, Lauren looked up and down, seeing more passersby on their way down the hall. She still didn’t know if she trusted them and would much rather be in a public place.

  “Should we go to the plaza to talk more?” she asked them.

  “Yes, that would be good,” Ankit said and they left.

  Chapter 18

  More of the Treatment

  The four of them chose to walk to the plaza instead of riding the train, giving them a chance to talk more in private. There weren’t many people walking, as it was mid-morning and not quite time for lunch yet, but there were enough people to help the girls feel comfortable should something happen.

  Lauren felt it was a better idea to be in a public place since they didn’t really know the Zebs. No humans knew them, and they had no idea how they would act or if they were unpredictable ogres that would devour them in half a second.

  “So do you all have Indian names?” Julia asked.

  “Yes,” Ankit answered, “when we researched your culture, people of Indian decent composed of 30% of the human population, and we suspected we would blend in better.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Julia said. “And do you have jobs on the station?” she asked.

  “Yes, when it serves a strategic purpose, such as in a government entity or out on the mines or in the station maintenance,” he said.

  Lauren wanted to know more about the controlling mechanism, so she probed, “I still don’t understand.”

  “Understand what?” Ankit asked.

  “How EVERYBODY on the station is controlled,” Lauren said, scrunching her eyebrows together, thinking about what they had just learned.

  “Well, the Gr-awl-toltz can control some people just on their own after we modified them genetically, but when they’re given the crystals, it amplifies their ability exponentially,” he said. “There’s also an extra injection of the crystalline substance that can be given to humans, which gives the Gr-awl-toltz enhanced control.”

  “I KNEW it!” Lauren exclaimed. “When I got that shot, it just felt like poison coursing through my veins.”

  “No, that was only the nanobots,” Raja interjected in a deep, rough voice.

  Julia scratched her head. “So the people in the factory, did they have the extra serum?”

  “That’s right, they get an extra dose of the serum. It allows the Gr-awl-toltz to put them in a zombie state so they don’t remember anything,” Ankit answered.

  “That sounds horrible,” Julia said, looking at them. She stumbled and recovered while they walked.

  “Yes, it is. And we have to stop it. We do not want them to turn your whole world into slaves like they did us!” Ankit said.

  There was an uneasy pause as the girls let the new revelation soak in. They kept walking and had arrived at the plaza.

  Scanning the crowd, Lauren found the most secluded table she could and directed the group to sit down. She felt more comfortable now that they were around more people.

  “What would you like?” Ankit asked.

  “Oh, pepperoni pizza is fine,” Lauren said.

  “Yes, for me, too,” Julia said.

  Raja and Ankit walked off to get the food, leaving the girls at the table.

  Lauren looked at her sister in disbelief. It was almost too much for her. Who would have ever thought she and her sister would be having pizza with two aliens from a distant galaxy and talking about the fate of humanity?

  “So you eat pizz
a?” Julia asked when Raja and Ankit returned with four slices of pepperoni pizza.

  “It’s not like our food from home, but we’re getting used to it. It’s sustenance,” Raja said.

  “So what do we do now?” Lauren asked, looking at Ankit with a blank face.

  Ankit sat, putting his hand on his forehead. “We need more of that treatment. That’s clear.”

  “How much more?” Lauren questioned.

  “Quite a bit. If we want to defeat it, we’re going to need a lot. Roughly about this much, I suspect,” Ankit said, while describing with his hands the dimensions of a small box.

  “That’s impossible!” Julia blurted out with her eyes wide open. “We can’t make that much! We’d have to fill a room with equipment. Where are we going to get all of that and not be noticed?”

  Raja grinned, a snaggletooth grin. “Never say impossible!”

  “You’re right, it is going to be difficult. We don’t have many of our tools here … if we just had … we could get it done in a couple of days,” Ankit muttered to himself.

  “Had what?” Julia asked.

  “Oh, nothing, some of our equipment. It’s much more advanced than your primitive tools,” Ankit said.

  “Well, primitive or not, I used an electrophoresis chamber when I did it here, but there’s better stuff at the mod shop—it just costs a lot more.” Julia tilted her forehead, shooting a stern gaze at Ankit.

  “Money isn’t a problem. We can pay for it. We have access to all kinds of untraceable credits,” Raja replied.

  “Well, what are we going to do with it?” Julia asked.

  “With what?” Ankit asked.

  “The treatment!” Lauren answered back.

  “We need to free more of our people. I think with more of our people we can defeat it,” Ankit said.

  “You think? You don’t know?” Lauren asked, with a gaping mouth and crooked neck. The two now felt more comfortable speaking freely and acting insolent like they would with their parents.

  “Well … it’s happened so fast, I haven’t had time to think it all through,” Ankit muttered through his snaggled teeth.

  “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t give me a lot of confidence!” Lauren shot back.

  “It’s our only hope,” Raja interrupted. “If we get a small enough group, we can wrest control from it. It would take much more than that to saturate the entire station to inoculate the humans.”

  “Well, then I guess we’ll have to try that. Who do we inoculate first?” Lauren questioned further.

  “I’m not sure,” Ankit responded.

  “Well, that’s some plan you have!” Lauren accused.

  “I’m still working on it.” Ankit shifted back in his seat.

  “Come on, let’s go to Grid 2. We’ll need to hurry to get back home before Mom notices. We’ll need to stop by our apartment and get some more of those crystals,” Julia said, standing up.

  Ankit and Raja stood up, joining Julia on the walk to the train station.

  Lauren muttered, “I’m not sure I like this. There’s no plan.” She folded her arms and stayed in her seat. The she picked up her phone. “Call Mom.”

  Her mom answered a moment later. “Mom, Julia and I are going down to Grid 11 to get more supplies for her project.”

  Pause.

  “Yes, we’ll be back a little after you get home. Love you!” Lauren disconnected and ran to catch up with her sister.

  The girls knew they would have to be quick. Their mother was out with their two younger siblings and they had only a couple of hours to get the crystals, buy the equipment, and get it set up.

  Their apartment was a quick stop away. Julia ran back home while the rest of the group waited in the train station. She gathered a number of the crystals that already had the treatment on them and put them into a sealed bag and grabbed as many of the unexposed crystals as she could carry.

  Lauren saw her sister struggling with the bag of rocks in the hall and ran up to help her. The two of them lugged the bag up to the train and handed it to Raja, who effortlessly slung it over his shoulder.

  “You humans are weaklings,” he said, grinning at them.

  Julia laughed.

  The next train pulled into the station and the group hopped on. The four seated themselves away from the other passengers.

  Ankit glanced around the train at the other passengers, making sure they were beyond earshot. “There’s something we haven’t shared with you yet.”

  Lauren looked up. “What? What is it?”

  “We have the technology to travel through space much faster than the speed of light,” he admitted.

  “OK,” Lauren said.

  “There’s a problem … it took us over 60 years to get here from the outer boundary of our territory We traveled at the speed of light in a caravan from our solar system, all the while under control of the Gr-awl-toltz. We were put in hibernation, so we didn’t age. All of our family back home is much older now … maybe gone.”

  Lauren stared at him with wide eyes. “I’m sorry. That must be hard.”

  “It is. I had two little girls about your ages when they coerced me, forcing me on this expedition. I’m afraid I will never see them again.” Ankit looked away.

  “Well, can’t you get back now that you’re free from its control?” Julia asked.

  “That’s what we haven’t told you … the technology we have is a star gate. It’s a wormhole. It lets us travel instantaneously between two points in space,” Ankit said.

  “That’s great! Then you can get home!” Julia blurted out.

  “It’s not that easy. When we came here, we brought all the plans to build the gate. It is too big and fragile to move. It’s a massive undertaking. Most of our people are dedicated to building the gate. We take a lot of the material intended for New Cielo and use it in the star gate,” he continued.

  “What do you mean?” Lauren questioned, looking more anxious.

  “I think you know what I’m getting at …” Ankit said.

  Julia crinkled her nose with a puzzled look, but Lauren understood, “You’re building it to bring the rest of them here …”

  Ankit nodded, confirming her fear. Julia pursed her lips into a concerned “oh.”

  “They’re coming?” Julia asked.

  “Yes, they’re coming, Julia, why do you think they’re building that thing?” Lauren frowned at her sister. She looked back at Ankit. “How much time do we have?”

  “Weeks … maybe. They’re ahead of schedule. It’s getting close,” Ankit replied. “Maybe that’s what we should do with the little bit of treatment we can get. We could expose our people at the star gate to the treatment and try to get control of it.”

  “But it will take at least several days or a week to make enough of it! Even with the better equipment!” Julia protested.

  Some of the people sitting at the other end of the train car looked down at them when Julia’s voice rose.

  Raja lowered his voice, huddling close to the others. “We have no time to lose. We need to start making it tonight.”

  “Where is this star gate? How come no one has seen it before?” Lauren asked.

  “It orbits Jupiter now. That was the best place to put it to keep it undetected from Earth. On Cielo, it’s easier to control the people since they are under the influence of the Gr-awl-toltz, so they cannot see it,” Ankit answered.

  “Jupiter? It’d take weeks to get there from here!” Julia said.

  “No, with our technology it’s mere hours. Our thrusters accelerate much faster than the technology humans have today,” Raja interjected.

  “Wait, how does the Gr-awl-toltz control you from that far away?” Lauren asked.

  “Good question,” Ankit said. “There’s a neuro-repeater at the star gate that can relay the neuro-transmissions. It extends their reach when they aren’t close enough.”

  “What are you talking about?” Julia asked.

  “These devices can re-transmit the Gr-
awl-toltz brain waves allowing them to control us at great distances,” Raja added.

  “Here we are,” Ankit said, standing up as the train arrived at the Grid 2 station.

  Julia led the other three through the narrow maze of hallways leading to Morrison’s mod shop. They rounded the last corner with a hot, humid gust of air greeting them.

  Julia looked down, rubbing her forearms as the moist air condensed on her arm. She looked back to make sure the rest of the group was following. As they came up to the shop, she noticed the light was still broken outside the shop, as it was when they had been there before.

  They walked through the dimly lit doorway, looking around. The girls squinted. They recognized the man whose reptilian form and gangly arms draped over the counter. Low light reflected from his part-human skin, part-lizard scales.

  Morrison recognized them, too, turning a side of his mouth up, smirking, “What are you … sss … two doing back here?”

  He didn’t acknowledge their two companions.

  The girls walked up to the counter. Julia asked, “Remember us?”

  “Not too many kidssss your age coming in here … ssss … how can I help you today?”

  “We need some equipment,” Julia said, slapping her phone on the counter and showing him the screen.

  “Still feissssty assss ever,” Morrison said, eyeing the phone from a distance. He picked it up, bringing it closer to his face.

  “Hmm … how … ssss … are you kidssss going to … pay for … thissss?” he asked, looking back at the two.

  Lauren motioned to Ankit behind her. He stepped forward out of the shadows, extending his closed hand over the counter and dropping a handful of credits.

  “Untracablesssss,” Morrison said, licking his lips. He narrowed his eyes at Ankit.

  Ankit retracted his hand, clasping it with his other hand in front of his body, not a trace of emotion crossing his face.

  Morrison looked at the credits, then back at Ankit. “You’re not one of them, are you? Sssss.”