Fear the Empire Read online

  “Yes,” Ntombi replied, nodding her head confidently. “You favorite now. I no understand. You weak. No power.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Welcome.”

  Wesley took a deep breath in through his nose, filling his lungs with the smoke from the incense jar sitting next to the bed. It was a sweet, flowery mixture that reminded him of his aunt's perfume. His mind wandered to the past, across the ocean, to the tiny apartment they shared, but he forced his mind back to his breathing. Only his breath. In and out.

  “I not care for power,” Ntombi said, stepping around the spot where he sat on the floor with his legs crossed. “You nice. This why you are friend.”

  Wesley opened one eye, accepting that she probably wasn't going to let him meditate in her room. “Thanks, Ntombi. I think you're nice too.”

  Ntombi folded a pile of blankets on top of a chair as she continued. “You nice. I nice. No explain why Kgosi like you.”

  “He sees potential in me. That's what he tells me anyway.”

  “Because you kill good.”

  Wesley closed his eyes, letting the memory of killing the Bautista brother shudder through his mind. The gore and blood and shrieks of terror could be summoned at a moment's notice. It was still so vivid, yet felt like a dream. He knew he had done it, there was no denying it, but he felt so removed from the moment. It was like pushing a button and having someone fall dead on the other side of the planet. Or the moon. Was he really at fault? It wasn't exactly putting a knife into someone, or even pulling a trigger. Yet it happened. Surreal didn't even begin to explain it.

  “It's because I believe in what he's teaching. I believe his words.”

  “You saw proof.”

  Wesley shook his head and stood up, his skinny legs struggling to lift his body. He was beyond gaunt at this point, his raggedy clothes barely hanging on his skeletal structure. He had bought in completely to the God-King Kgosi's teachings of minimal pleasures. Just enough food to keep your vessel alive, and your mind will thrive. Deny one to strengthen the other.

  “I don't think that's true,” Wesley said, remembering the order of events. “I needed to believe in order to prove I could do it. Only when I let go of my doubt, was I able to succeed.”

  “Succeed to kill.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “Always choice.”

  Wesley shook his head slowly. “Yeah. Sure. Death was my other choice. Great option.”

  “No! You run. You hide. Always choice.”

  Wesley grabbed one of the blankets and helped her fold, setting them in neat piles next to each other. They felt smooth and silky, far different from his own coarse bedding. He tried to deny the pleasure he felt when his fingertips ran across the material.

  “I wish that were true, Ntombi, but this world doesn't allow pacifism. It doesn't allow you to just stick your head in the sand and ignore what's going on. You can't hide from the super powers that are running things. You can't hide from the Empire, or the Alliance, or the supervillains that try to operate under the radar. Everyone is trying to control everyone else. If you don't stand up for yourself, you become a slave to them.”

  Ntombi continued to fold the blankets, but her gaze was looking past them. Her thoughts were elsewhere.

  “Am I slave?”

  “No one is forcing this on you. No one is locking you up. You can leave anytime.”

  Ntombi dropped the blanket she was folding. “But I have no choice. Isn't this what you say? I cannot hide. I cannot run. This my only life. I must work.”

  “I can't imagine anyone pushing you around, Ntombi. You're too tough for that.”

  Ntombi seemed to think hard about his words, rolling them around in her mind, considering their meaning to the fullest. Finally, she nodded, but with a saddened face.

  “I am tough. Yes. But grow tough because I get hurt. No? I take pain and keep standing. This make me tough.”

  Wesley hadn't considered her taking his meaning like that, and immediately turned his full attention toward her.

  “No! Ntombi, that's not what I meant.”

  “But true.”

  Wesley paused. “Who hurt you?”

  Ntombi opened her mouth, then shut it. “Not matter. I have no choice.”

  Wesley grabbed her arm as she turned away. “Ntombi. If someone is hurting you, you can tell me.”

  “What you do? Kill them?”

  “Ntombi. I'm serious.”

  Ntombi shook her head. “Life is pain. Life hurt me. You cannot kill that, old boy.”

  The nickname stung every time she used it. He still couldn't tell if it was affectionate, or condescending, or both.

  “I just want to-”

  Ntombi held up her hand to stop him. “I know. Very sweet. But I am old now. See things different. Too complicated for simple answer.”

  Even in his experience, Wesley knew that to be true. Anytime someone thought they could solve something with a simple answer, he assumed they were wrong. It was ignorance, or maybe overconfidence, that led people down that path.

  “Just... be honest with me, okay?”

  The look on her face became very serious. “I never lie.”

  Wesley smiled. “Okay then. That's all I ask.”

  “You leave now.” Ntombi shooed her hands toward him, leading him toward the door to her chamber. “I am busy.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Wesley opened the door, then hugged her. “I should get to my training. You take care.”

  When he shut the door behind him and turned down the hall, he nearly walked right into Javier Bautista. The muscular man was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, a broad smile on his face.

  “Hey there, pebble boy.”

  Everyone had a nickname for him, and none of them were flattering.

  Wesley decided to ignore the comment and step around him, but of course the large man stepped in his way.

  “You two having fun in there?”

  “I need to go train,” Wesley said, trying to sidestep him again, but to no avail.

  “You're right about that. Have you managed marble size yet? Golf ball? I hope not. Golf ball boy doesn't have the same ring to it.”

  Wesley's eyes squinted. “All I need is a button. Remember?”

  The sarcastic smile on Javier's face fell away and his eyes grew intense. Suddenly, Wesley felt a force grip onto his body and lift him from the stone floor. It squeezed, ever so gently around his neck, forcing him to gasp for air.

  “Keep joking, pebble boy. You may have bested my brother with your tricks, but you won't find me so easy. One little squeeze and your throat goes... pop!”

  The invisible grip on his neck gave a quick pinch, causing him to gag, then the force relented and dropped him to the ground. He coughed a few times, massaging his Adam's apple, before he crawled to his feet.

  “You know you're not allowed to use your powers on me, Javier. The God-King forbid it.”

  “Oh no! Are you going to run off and tell him? Are you going to tell your new best friend all about the mean man that scared you?”

  “What do you even want, Javier? Are you so bored with your life that this somehow entertains you?”

  Javier's smile returned. “No, no. What entertains me is in that room. But I'm a gentleman. I was just waiting my turn.”

  Wesley looked at the door to Ntombi's chamber. “She's busy right now.”

  “She's never too busy for me,” Javier said, shoving Wesley to the side with his psionic ability and opening the door. “Honey! I'm home!”

  He flashed a quick smile, all teeth, at Wesley, before he slammed the door behind him, leaving Wesley alone in the hallway. Wesley took a step toward the door, ready to throw it open and defend Ntombi, but he stopped himself. He had already caused enough trouble in the House of Psi. Their culture, the people, they were not his to decide right and wrong for. If she wanted a child with psionic powers, then Javier was now her only choice.

  He tried to be reasonable, to be matu
re about the situation, but as he walked down the hall, toward the training rooms, his stomach grew sick. He pictured Javier crawling on top of her, his disgusting breath all over her, his clumsy hands grabbing and pulling at her.

  By the time he stepped into the training room, his heart was racing. His hands were balled into fists, his knuckles white with pressure. He punched the wall without even thinking about it, just needing to lash out at something, anything, but his thin arm pushing his tiny hand barely tapped the stone. His ineffectiveness only frustrated him more. He picked up the tea kettle near the door and flung it across the room. The loud clang gave him an animalistic satisfaction, so he picked up the tray of cups and threw them too. They shattered into fragments against the wall as Wesley let out a yell.

  When he heard his voice bounce off the walls, he felt foolish. This wasn't him. He took a deep breath in through his nose, centering himself, trying to defuse the bomb inside him. But it still rumbled, deep in his stomach. It scratched at an itch that was raw and bleeding. Anger and frustration kept tugging on his mind, no matter how much he focused on his breathing.

  “You know if you trained harder, you could have done all that with just your thoughts.”

  The voice came from the doorway, and when he spun around, he saw Zola standing there, one eyebrow raised on her forehead.

  Wesley glanced at the tea kettle laying on the ground among the shattered cups and felt his embarrassment rise again.

  “I'm sorry,” he mumbled as he rushed over to the mess and began to clean it up. “I... I don't know what came over me.”

  “Something wrong?”

  Wesley paused, then shook his head.

  “You're a bad liar,” she said as she stepped into the room and sat down on one of the pillows on the floor.

  “It's nothing.”

  “We are a family, Wesley. And families aren't perfect. If you bottle up your feelings, they will remain hidden and there will be no way to tend to your wounds.”

  The circular logic of wisdom again. It was still the thing he hated about the House of Psi. It was this constant flow of words that sounded ancient and wise, like a fortune cookie, but when you dissected them, they ended up being nonsense. He still believed in the truth of the teachings, he just hated the fact that he had to dig so deep in order to find that truth.

  “I'm just... I hate the way Javier treats the women in this family. He uses them. They're toys to him. I know we need him to propagate this next generation of children, but...”

  “Are you jealous?”

  Wesley jerked his head back. “What? Jealous? No. Why would you think that?”

  Zola shrugged her shoulders. “You spend a lot of time there. With the mothers.”

  Wesley shook his head. “No, no. I'm not... doing that. I'm just... I only spend time with Ntombi. She's my friend.”

  Zola's eyebrows raised high on her head. “Oh! You and Ntombi, eh? I didn't realize there was something going on with you two. I'm not sure Kgosi would approve of monogamy between you and her. That isn't exactly the best way to create a large amount of offspring.”

  Wesley let out a sigh. “She's my friend. We're not doing anything. I don't even like girls. Not like that.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  Zola smirked and said, “Not to me. But have you told Kgosi? I have a feeling he would be disappointed that yet another family member was unable, or unwilling, to produce offspring for him.”

  “It hasn't exactly come up.”

  Zola shrugged. “I'm sure we can find a work around. Artificial insemination. Something.”

  Wesley stared down at the broken pieces of pottery at his feet. “It's not like I don't want children. I actually thought that children might be the thing that was missing, the thing that I've been searching for to fill that hole in my life. I might really like being a father some day. Just... not like this.”

  “Wesley... this isn't about you. This is about the future of our family. There is going to come a day where we need to protect ourselves. And the only way to do that, is to make sure there are enough of us with powers to do so. If Javier is the only one creating offspring... the future of this family is doomed. You don't expect us to start inbreeding, do you?”

  Wesley hadn't even considered any of that. He honestly didn't care about it. He was so focused on his studies, because finding the Veritas that Kgosi kept talking about, finding that truth felt like his only goal in life. His only purpose. It was yet another answer to what was missing in his life, in his soul. Was being so focused on his own emptiness selfish?

  “But what about Ntombi? I don't think she even realizes that the way Javier's treating her is wrong. I don't think she knows anything different than this.”

  “Or perhaps she doesn't think it's wrong. Perhaps she likes it, or at the very least doesn't mind it.”

  “But he treats her like-”

  “I know how he treats her. There was a time when I was the best hope for Kgosi's next generation. A woman with psionic abilities would be the perfect vessel. Every child I bore with another psionic would be assured powers. The Bautista brothers worked day and night to impregnate me. It did not take long for us to realize I was barren.”

  Wesley's stomach flipped again. The whole ordeal was so foreign to him. He couldn't look past his own morals, his own ideals for what coupling and love and relationships should look like, but everyone in the House of Psi talked like procreation was just another job, another duty.

  “So we all just have to sit back and watch Javier take advantage of them, because he has powers?”

  “Until the infants that have shown signs of powers grow into adults, and we have separate bloodlines to begin mixing, yes. For now, Javier is our only hope.”

  “But you said you could artificially inseminate the women. Why couldn't we take Javier and-”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “Because-”

  “Because you're uncomfortable? You want us to expand the small laboratory we have here, enlist more doctors and nurses than we already have, spend more of our already depleting resources, so that you don't have to deal with the awkwardness of other people's sexual intercourse?”

  Wesley let out a breath, defeated. Zola was right, of course. He was being close-minded. What other consenting adults did was none of his business. But wasn't that what bothered him? Could Ntombi really be a consenting adult if she felt she had no other choice. Was it his role to give her a choice, or at least show her another option? Did he really think himself so superior as to “save” this culture from itself? The fine line of morality was infuriating.

  Zola stood up and placed her hand on Wesley's shoulder. “You're on thin ice with this family. After what you did to Sergio, people are scared of you. The mothers don't want their children to go near you. The men think you should be expelled from the House. It's only Kgosi that keeps you here.”

  “But I only did what I was asked to do! It was me or him!”

  “But they don't know you. You're a stranger to everyone. I'm sorry, Wesley, but the truth is... they were rooting for him to win.”

  Wesley felt overwhelmed by the sheer darkness of his reality. He was focused so inward, that he had forgotten about those that surrounded him.

  “But Kgosi likes you. He sees a potential in you that, I'll be honest, even I question. But it doesn't matter. Kgosi is the God-King. The Mental Absolute. The Prime Mind. The Thought Perfection. If he believes in you, then we all must believe in you.”

  “So I don't have to earn my place? That doesn't seem right.”

  “I never said that. Just keep your head down. Don't cause problems. And perhaps, eventually, the family will see what Kgosi sees.”

  Wesley nodded.

  Zola stepped toward the door. “Keep practicing, Wesley. Soon enough, you'll find your purpose in this family. Time continues to move forward, and change comes with it. What you know now, may not be true the next time the sun rises. This family will
grow and evolve and change. Trust me. I have seen it before, and I will see it again.”

  As she shut the door behind her, her words seemed to have a weight to them that the usual, nonsensical words never had. She seemed to be speaking from within, instead of reciting one of Kgosi's psionic teachings.

  Zola wasn't exactly his friend, he wasn't sure a woman like that had friends, but he didn't consider her an enemy either. She was on his side. She wanted him to succeed. And from her, that was enough.

  Wesley sat down on the floor and folded his legs underneath him. He cupped his hands in his lap and pressed three fingertips on each hand against each other. The position was referred to as the 12th thought. It was the pinnacle of the Second Circle. If he could master it, Kgosi would begin his teachings of the Third Circle.

  He tried to focus, but his mind kept returning to thoughts of the family. He knew he needed to do more than keep his head down. That's what he did with his biological family. He remained selfish, focused only on his own wants and needs. He knew with this family, if he truly wanted to belong, he would need to reach out. He would need to prove himself to be an integral piece. He needed to balance his own psionic practices with the needs of the family. Just like Kgosi himself.

  3

  LUCY

  No matter how loud they turned up the television set, they couldn't drown out the rattle and hum of the old air conditioner in the window. Nor could they overwhelm the couple that was fighting on the other side of the north wall, or the furious banging of the headboard against the south wall.

  It was their third day in the motel, the longest they had stayed anywhere. They tried to keep moving. Every day a different room, a different alley, a different parking lot. But they were gearing up for their biggest move yet. They were going to cross the border.

  “Are you sure?” Lucy asked, holding the pair of scissors like an executioner's ax.

  “I don't really have a choice,” Connor said, sitting in the folding chair in front of her. “These dreadlocks are kind of my... thing. People are going to notice me. And according to the news, the Hive is still loyal to the Zharkovs.”