Heart of Annihilation (11 page)

Voltage, volted, volting. Voltage, volted, volting. Voltage, volted, volting!

“Rannen?”

The word made me jump, and it took a moment before I realized it came from my mouth. The gears in my brain creaked into action, silencing the mantra. I rotated my jaw, trying to pop my ear.

“I mean, Mister . . . um, Marshal Rannen, sir?” I continued. Rannen and Thurmond turned from their argument. My words were no longer slurring, and now that I’d started talking I couldn’t seem to stop. “Hi, uh, yeah. It’s me. Kris Rose. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind clearing a few things up for me—us? I mean, since we’re sitting here.”

“Kris Rose?” Rannen asked, his expression curious.

Thurmond touched my cheek with the back of his hand, then turned to Rannen.

“Yeah, or Specialist Rose. Or just Rose. Whatever. You pick.” I shook my head, trying to force myself to stop babbling.

Rannen drew his shoulders to his ears, then dropped them with a sigh and nodded. He grabbed the handle of a metal crate a few feet away, grated it across the ground, and dropped it. Dirt puffed around the base. He cast a fleeting glance around the camp as if noting the locations of each Rethan before sitting on the crate. Thurmond crouched beside me, his muscles taut and eyes vigilant.

“What would you like to know?” Rannen seemed relaxed, but his hands balled into tight fists and rested on his knees.

I worked my hand into my pants pocket, felt around for a moment, and then with some difficulty pulled out Justet’s RETHA coin. My fingers fumbled the coin onto the sand. Rannen stared. Thurmond plucked the coin from the dirt and looked at it curiously before placing it in my hand. I caressed the coin with my thumb, and offered it to Rannen.

“Do you know what this is?”

Rannen’s eyes widened. He took it hesitantly. His mouth opened and closed as he turned it over in his hands. He looked from the coin to me, closed his mouth, and handed it back.

“Yes,” he said. I waited for more.

“And?”

“Where did you get it, Kris?”

My stomach jolted at the use of my first name. “Tell me what it is.”

“It’s a dimensional catapult. Clearly Rethan.” He pressed his lips together.

This was getting us nowhere. I didn’t have even a basis of understanding of what he was talking about.

“Okay,” I said, clearing my mind and trying to find a stable base to start again. “So dimension, erm, dimensional.” I blew out a breath. “I keep hearing about this dimension stuff. What exactly are we talking about? Dimensions like one, two, or three dimensional objects, or are we talking dimensions, like . . . like other worlds?”

A smile tilted the corners of Rannen’s mouth. It made him look, despite his enormity, like a little boy.

“You really don’t understand even the basic integrity of our planet?”

I tried not to take offense. “I understand that the Earth rotates around the sun and the moon around the Earth. I understand about the ozone layer and gravity and all the stuff in between. I just don’t understand dimensions.”

Rannen leaned away from me, and his hands relaxed for the first time since we started talking. “Our planet is made up of thirteen planes, or layers. They wrap around each other in a sort of ethereal sense.”

“You’re not aliens, then?”

“Well, yes. Alien to your dimension.”

“But not from outer space or anything?”

“No, not from outer space. We share the same planet. Terra. The third planet from the sun and one of the nine in our solar system.”

“Eight. Pluto was demoted.”

“So say the humans.” Rannen grinned.

I almost smiled back.

“So, the dimensions?” I prompted.

“Yes, the dimensions.” The grin wilted from Rannen’s face. “For example, the center dimension, or Thirteenth Dimension, is called the Heart. Retha, as the twelfth, wraps the Heart while Ather, the eleventh, wraps Retha.”

“And Earth?”

“Earth is considered an outer dimension. A lower one. Bottom three, only above Ehtar and Tareh in regards to technological advancements. Each dimension was colonized one at a time by settlers from the original three dimensions: Heart, Retha, and Ather.” Rannen gave a brief smile, and then puckered his mouth to suppress it. “Earth is a colonization of Retha, so I guess that makes us relatives.”

Yeah right, and I was a Rethan criminal. A shiver coursed down my arms and legs. I closed my eyes, waiting for it to pass. When I opened them again, Marshal Rannen’s face was the first thing I saw. He glanced around the camp again, chewed the inside of his mouth, and offered us a stern stare.

“You have to understand, this is all very hushed. Humans, as a general rule, are not privy to this information for obvious reasons. I trust you’ll keep it to yourself.”

Thurmond shrugged, as though he couldn’t believe he was being asked by our captors to protect a secret the world would scoff at anyway. I lifted the coin again.

“So, a dimensional catapult would be something that catapults you across dimensions?”

Rannen nodded but looked baffled.

“However, what you’re holding is a rarity. Those are only used after making a dimension jump from the Dimensional Congressional’s portal chamber. Unlike our other portals,” he waved his hand toward the tower, “you don’t need a matching portal on the other dimension. You simply use a dimensional catapult to jump you back from where you came. You just need a very specific electrical charge to keep you from jumping dimensions accidently.”

I squinted my eyes, trying to put all the information into a box that would help me understand Dad’s disappearance better. “You don’t have any more of these little coin thingies? I’ve got to jump start that massive thing over there instead?”

“Correct. Those,” he pointed at the coin in my hand, “haven’t been used in over twenty years that I’m aware of. They are housed in the portal chamber which has been locked since . . .” He looked at his hands, “Since your sentence.”

“Sentence?” Thurmond broke in. “Yeah, you guys were talking about that earlier. Care to explain?”

“Kris was sentenced to RAGE over twenty years ago.” Rannen kept his eyes on Thurmond. “Although not Kris exactly.”

“Sentenced, like, for committing a crime?” I said, suddenly nauseous. I looked at my imprinted palm. My right hand rested on my lap like a dead thing, blood crusted across it in dried, brown stripes. I uncurled my fingers enough for the tarnished symbols to be visible. “Is that what these mean?”

Marshal Rannen reached out and traced the symbols on my palm with fingers. My fingers closed around the symbols, and he jerked his hand back.

“They indicate your crime, your sentence, and the Vizshathain dosage . . . um, a dimensional camouflage of sorts—which makes you look like your human friend here.”

I rubbed my thumb across my palm, wishing it would erase the numbers, and exhaled in frustration. “So I was sentenced to a crime over twenty years ago—ya know, when I was a baby—imprinted with some letters on my hand, and dosed with camouflage. Even if this did make any sort of chronological sense, I’m going to believe you because . . . ?”

Rannen’s eyebrows rose, as if the answer couldn’t be more obvious. I answered with my best facial sarcasm. He sat back.

“Because, as I said, you were sentenced to RAGE.”

“RAGE?” Thurmond said.

“What’s ‘rage’?” I asked.

“The Reverse Aging Gateway to Earth. R-A-G-E. RAGE. It’s an incarceration portal between our dimensions.” He gestured at me. “For those exiled.”

“Reverse aging?” I asked. “So, like you stick some grownup in that portal and they come out the other end as a-a—”

“What, like a baby?” Thurmond finished with a snort.

Up until now I had been treating the whole thing like a big misunderstanding, some stupid mistake that neither the symbols on my hand nor the volting could prove. Now Rannen had thrown out a chunk of information that made the whole thing plausible on some weird, alternate-dimensional level.

I wanted to laugh. Mostly because it was ridiculous. Partially because I was desperate for Thurmond and Rannen to join in so this whole outrageous conversation would vanish into talk of college football or the weather.

Rippling lightning brightened the deep clouds. A grumble of thunder answered a few seconds later.

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. This whole thing was a nightmare, a hallucination brought on by shock. I mean, I’d been shot. I could be in shock, right? Yet the pain, the wind, the alien faces before me all seemed so real and . . .

Familiar?

No. None of this was familiar!

Then run. Run and they’ll hunt you. Hide and they’ll find you
, the voice whispered in a singsong voice.
They’ll find you. They’ll find you.

“Okay, so let’s
imagine
for a second what you’re saying is true,” I said, with as much skepticism as I could. I opened my hand again. “What’s my crime?”

“Kris,” Rannen closed my hand, engulfing my dirty fist in his massive white paw. The personal use of my first name, the look in his eye, and the sad droop to his mouth combined into an expression so desolate it made my heart falter. “I don’t need to read your inscription to know your crime.”

A jolt of electricity passed from his hand into mine, but instead of causing me discomfort it raced across my arm and into my head. An image solidified before my mind’s eye for a millisecond, not giving me enough time to examine but leaving behind the trace of an intense personal connection to this complete stranger.

I narrowed my eyes, examining his face. The pleasant mouth, the straight nose, the thick brows. Every tiny feature hid a clue, a tool in helping me pin down the memory that hovered like a gnat just outside my present recollections.

“We’ve met before.”

“We have,” Rannen said.

“What’d I do?”

“You brutally murdered two hundred thirty-six Rethans,” Rannen whispered.

The two of us froze in an icy box. His eyes held no anger. Nothing hinted at the despair from before. He might as well have been an icicle for all the information his face contained. And yet the accusation hung between us. A black, ugly thing, riddled with cause and consequence.

Killed them. Killed them all. Forty thousand volts of Earth amperage and an elegant blade of silver.
The voice laughed with a breathy sigh.

Lightning flashed across Rannen’s face. A clap of thunder answered, making me jump. I blinked. The otherworldly tension connecting us lifted. I pried his fingers from my hand. He leaned back quickly, pulling his hand away and rubbing his knuckles. I turned to Thurmond, hoping he’d bring me back to Earth where I belonged.

But where I hoped to see humor, disbelief, and skepticism, I found instead a grim, thoughtful expression.

“So.” I kept my voice light in an attempt to bring the mood back to my originally planned interrogation. “Why have all these little dimensional catapult thingies been left all over the US in the last several years?”

“They have?” Rannen looked genuinely surprised. “I don’t know. As far as I know, the portal chamber is locked tight. With no jump through the portal, no coin is needed to get back. We use that one over there because we can’t mimic the technology of the chamber. It’s been thousands of years since it was created. You think we’d have figured it out by now.”

My gut tightened. Retha, coins, dimensional aliens, and portals. The one thing I understood, though, was that if a coin were left at the site of the crime, a dimensional jump would have been made. Did that mean Dad was in Retha?

I dropped my eyes to the coin in my lap. I barely listened as Thurmond picked up the questioning.

“Retha is the twelfth dimension and you said Earth is the third?”

Rannen answered, “Yes.”

“And there are thirteen?”

“That’s correct, but dimensions six through eleven no longer exist. I guess you could say there are only seven now.”

“Where’d they go? The ones that don’t exist anymore.”

“The Thirteenth Dimension, the Heart, as the governing power of the entire planet, reserves the right to exercise genocidal authority over the lower dimensions.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Thurmond asked.

“It means they can and have destroyed entire dimensions to maintain the planet’s balance. I remember when the eleventh dimension was destroyed. Too corrupt, or something.”

His answer was vague enough that he probably knew exactly what had happened but didn’t want to reveal it. Pretty bad then.

“They are the center dimension. The original dimension.” Rannen went on. “It is their right as our forefathers.”

“Sounds like one hell of a God complex.” Thurmond finally relaxed enough to sit against the wall. “Not something you should just let them get away with.”

Rannen sat back, his face thoughtful. After a moment he spoke. “There was a group once who tried to stand up to them. They believed that even the most intelligent and advanced governors need to be governed. We chalk it up to mythology now. A warning to the rest of us. No one wants to become like the Ehtar.” He frowned. “It’s not something we like to talk about.”

“Ehtar’s right under Earth, right?” Thurmond said.

“No, Tareh. Ehtar is—
was
the first dimension.”

“Was?” I scoffed, shaking my head.

“Oh,” Rannen’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t misunderstand. The Thirteenth Dimension is simply protecting the rest of us. They’re quite benevolent.”

Oh yes. Quite benevolent,
the voice offered.

“Sure they are.” I let it go. I was barely interested. I looked toward the tower, where the officiate shouted orders.

“So, there are different societies in each dimension?” Thurmond asked.

He talked in the background as I studied the route to the tower. Would I be detained if I got up and walked over there? Would I even make it, or pass out cold?

“Yes,” Rannen said. “In the dimensions that are populated, that is.”

“How come we can’t see or sense each other?”

“Sometimes we can. There are places where the dimensional fabric is so thin a presence can be detected. I understand this is where your ghost stories come from.”

“Or we have ghosts,” I said, my eyes still following the officiate.