Recruits Series, Book 1 Page 3

  Sean liked being able to look at him directly. It felt like he had crossed over some threshold, meeting the man’s gaze. “What are you enlisting him for?”

  “An excellent question.” Carver aimed his stump at the pair. “Let us complete this purchase, and then I will answer.”

  5

  Thirty minutes later, they were seated in Dillon’s favorite restaurant. Actually, Sean liked it well enough. When Carver asked where they wanted to have dinner, Dillon responded by turning the wheel and heading for the Hillsborough Street Grill. Every other birthday, Dillon got to choose. He had selected the Grill ever since his seventh year. How Dillon had first learned about the place, Sean had no idea. Osmosis, probably. A whiff of grilling sirloin burger on the breeze.

  “Four thousand years ago by your counting, a planet discovered a set of hidden records which declared that theirs was not the only world where humans existed,” Carver told them. “That actually there were many others where humans were the dominant race. At first they refused to believe it. But through this newly discovered record, they also learned how to harness the energy that propelled you through the portal. And they realized the records were true.”

  Sean asked, “How many others?”

  “We are still determining this. For example, your own planet was not discovered until two hundred and seventeen years ago.”

  “So the records of other worlds isn’t complete,” Sean said.

  “Exactly. Why, we have no idea. There is a great deal we do not know about the Ancients. We do not even know if they themselves were human. Or why they chose to plant humanoid colonies as they did. Or even how.”

  Sean’s own response surprised him. Everything Carver was telling them promised to overturn both his perspective and his life’s direction. A tiny part of him wanted to run screaming from the room. But mostly he felt . . . The only word that fit was okay. Because hovering there in the background was the image of their station. What Carver told him built a foundation for that new reality.

  Sean asked, “How many worlds that you know about?”

  “One hundred and nineteen. Of them, eighty-two are members of the Assembly.”

  “Are we the last to be discovered?”

  “No. There have been seven more since. All as far-flung as your Earth. We call them outposts.” He wet a finger in his glass of water and drew an oval on the tabletop. “You are here, in the galaxy’s far edge. The main cluster of human-occupied planets is here, midway out the galaxy’s opposite side.”

  “So, a long way.”

  Carver shrugged. “You have seen for yourself, physical distance means very little when you can open the portal.”

  The Grill was jammed, as always. It had been a destination of choice ever since some foodie magazine claimed it made the nation’s best burgers. The restaurant was noisy enough for their conversation to stay private.

  His brother’s response disturbed Sean. Dillon stared moon-eyed at the beast parked out beyond the front window. As though a new car was more interesting than hearing their lifelong dream was not actually a dream at all.

  Sean nudged his brother. “Anytime you feel like joining in here.”

  Dillon turned around. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it tonight.” He elbowed Dillon again. “Pay attention.”

  “Sure.”

  Sean didn’t like this easy agreement. It promised trouble. Dillon normally responded to being nudged by slugging him.

  He turned back to Carver and asked, “So they discovered some secret records, but they don’t know where they came from or even how long they’ve been out there?”

  “Correct. The records were hidden in a manner that you will only understand when you progress.”

  “If we progress,” Sean said.

  “When.” Carver was firm on this.

  “Your Examiner doesn’t agree,” Sean pointed out. “He thinks you’re wasting your time.”

  “He is not my Examiner. He is yours. And Examiner Tirian likes everything neat and orderly. Tirian wants to identify the candidates early. As close to birth as possible. So they can be monitored and trained.”

  “Then we get discovered . . .”

  “You are everything he detests. You come from a rogue planet. You have no proper background or training. You are revealed by accident, a random scan of your planet that takes place every few years.”

  Sean liked this. How he could be comfortable enough with the stranger to come up with the next strand of thought. “And up we pop.”

  “Out of nowhere. Clearly connected to the concept of a higher force, a greater potentiality.”

  “And our Examiner, he doesn’t like that.”

  Carver actually showed teeth. “He was livid. He wanted to pretend you did not exist. That you were an anomaly. The empire would best be served by ignoring your existence.”

  Dillon caught that word. “Empire.”

  Carver swiveled the gun-barreled gaze to Sean’s brother. “Correct.”

  “But you said the planets are separate.”

  “One Race, Many Worlds, One Aim.”

  The way Carver said it, solemn and stern, left Sean in no doubt he had just heard a motto. Or pledge. Or something. “And that aim is . . .”

  Carver sat. Waiting.

  Dillon offered, “Peace?”

  “Good. Very good. Sean asked what you were being enlisted into. There are two threats to peace. The first is internal. All worlds within the Human Assembly pledge to protect the rights of their citizens. There are regular reviews by specialists known as Counselors. If a government fails a review, there is a warning. If the situation is not corrected, the planetary Ambassador and the Counselor are assigned power as temporary governors, or Monitors. In the worst case, the Praetorian Guard are called in.”

  Dillon scoffed, “You think our Earth gets a passing grade? For real?”

  Sean could answer that one. “We’re not signed into the empire.”

  Carver’s gaze sparked approval. “Every few years, the Counselor assigned to your sector returns with a specialist team. All human planets are surveyed by a group known as Watchers, who are trained and very sensitive to potential recruits.”

  “You mean, like, telepathy?”

  “Thought transference is not possible, though some technologies come close. No, the Watchers scan at the level of energy, hunting for traces of the same force you harnessed in order to transit. All potential recruits emanate this force. Some Watchers describe it as a flavor, others as a sound. Three months ago they performed the first scan of this planet in almost a decade. And discovered you.”

  “Better late than never, right?” Dillon grinned. “Except for Tirian.”

  Sean asked, “So how does a planet get to join your Assembly?”

  “There are guidelines set in place. The Counselor assigned to your Earth covers what is known as an outpost sector, in this case containing eleven planets. Every so often, the Counselor will seek to identify a likely leader. They approach, explain who they are and what they represent. So far, not one of Earth’s leaders has accepted the empire’s challenge. Until that happens, the Counselor is forbidden to do anything except observe. Once a leader has accepted the challenge, the Counselor offers support, advice, resources.”

  Dillon said, “Counselor sounds kind of, I don’t know, wimpish.”

  “In most cases, Counselors serve as advisors. They and Ambassadors and planetary Justices are also responsible for overseeing a world’s level of adherence to the planetary code. In a sense, they represent the empire’s might. They are selected through a very grueling process. Your Examiner wishes to become a Counselor, and eventually an Ambassador or a planetary Justice.”

  Dillon asked the question for both of them. “So what are you?”

  “Right now, I serve as your instructor.”

  “No, I mean—”

  “I know what you mean.” Carver set his stump on the table beside his empty plate. “I am an officer in the Praetoria
n Guard.”

  Sean felt the burn rise in his gut. “And the second threat?”

  Carver waited for them to answer that one.

  For the first time that evening, Dillon became totally involved. “Aliens? Really?”

  Carver did not share their thrill. “The first assault came so soon after the records were discovered, some think the records were revealed because of their coming invasion. As though we had to be under serious threat to realize what had been hidden away. Understand, we have no idea how long our heritage had remained concealed. But very soon after these records popped up, one of the neighboring worlds was overrun.”

  “By what?”

  “This answer must wait. Fear can form a barrier to your progress.”

  “Sooo . . .” Dillon hesitated, then had to ask. Which was good, because it saved Sean from needing to do it himself. “These aliens, they’re seriously scary?”

  Carver shook his head, denying them an answer. “Listen very carefully. You met the Examiner. We have one month. There will be tests, not every day, but often. Fail one, and I am required to wipe your memories. You will forget everything.”

  Sean recalled what Carver had said in the kitchen. “You were not here. We did not meet.”

  “Correct.” He reached into his pocket and passed over two slender hard-shell packs. “Inside are headsets. Place the large element over the center of your forehead. Wear them at night.”

  Sean did not touch the box. “This is the mind-wipe thingie?”

  “No, you will not see that, you will not recall it, and if you proceed as you have started, it will not happen.” He nudged the boxes. “These are instructional. You will be taught as you sleep. If you are indeed open to instruction. Tonight will determine this.”

  The two brothers made the boxes disappear. Then Dillon asked, “But if we pass, we get to fight aliens? For real?”

  Carver’s gaze remained locked on Sean. As though he needed to get a message across. What exactly, Sean had no idea. “The key to success is a combination of discipline, determination, and confidence. Repeat those words back to me.”

  The guy was stern enough, strong enough, serious enough, for them to actually do what he ordered.

  “Focus on this. Not what comes later. Direct your attention and your energy toward meeting the next goal.” Carver slipped from the booth. “That mindset offers the best chance of success.”

  6

  Sean and Dillon had separate bedrooms connected by a bathroom. It was a silly arrangement as far as Sean was concerned. How much could it have cost to put in a second bath and give the kids some privacy? As it was, two of the bathroom’s walls were basically nothing except doors. There were a lot of things Sean didn’t like about the place they called home. Their bedrooms had biggish walk-in closets, but the bedrooms themselves were narrow and hardly larger than the closets, like they’d been designed for princesses-in-training. Sean had always known it wasn’t the closets or the narrow bedrooms or the silly plastic cross-hatchings they stuck on the windows or the blinds that constantly broke down. Or the one bathroom where there should have been two. Sean had always been restless. He had always felt like the home trapped him and Dillon more than it nurtured.

  The bathroom doors were open so he and Dillon could talk. They used to do that all the time. Now, not so much.

  Dillon murmured, “So . . . this whole deal. You think maybe it’s real?”

  Sean decided not to mention the silver beast parked in the drive next door. The same machine, minus the red paint and the side flames, that Dillon had as his computer’s background. “We’re wearing crowns to bed and you’re asking me this?”

  The things did actually look like the tiaras they’d seen in movies, when the young princelings were trotted out to greet the world. The circlets had snapped into place as soon as the boxes were opened, silver wire that could be flexed and folded with ease. A flat plate about the size of Sean’s thumbnail fitted snug over his forehead. Another two were set on his temples.

  Dillon said, “Not to mention how we were handed these things by a military officer from the other side of the galaxy, right?”

  “Right.”

  “He could still bring out the knives and surprise us tomorrow.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Yeah. I mean, he knew about the Charger.”

  “And the Beemer.”

  “Really?”

  “He told me while Chet was walking you around the car.”

  “Old Chet. We sure made his day.”

  “The guy is still quivering.”

  Dillon went quiet. Then, “I don’t know how I feel about them listening in on us.”

  Sean didn’t respond. He knew how he felt. It made him burn.

  “But I guess it’s okay, since we spent the day traveling to our train station.”

  “With the modulated gravity.”

  “Right. Just like we imagined.”

  “We didn’t, though. Imagine it.”

  “Sure.” Another pause, then, “I wonder what that means. Modulated.”

  “Means you can walk on the ceiling, I guess.”

  “So we study all this stuff,” Dillon said. “We pass the tests. And we go fight aliens. Sounds like a good life to me.”

  Sean nodded. He had been thinking the same thing.

  “I don’t like the idea of getting mind-wiped if we fail.”

  “We won’t,” Sean said. He hated a lot of things about this deal. Most of all, he hated the fear he felt over this prospect. Now that he had done it. Now that he had accepted the reality of something more. “We can’t let that happen.”

  7

  The dream was waiting for Sean. That was how it felt. One minute he was thinking on what Carver might have in store the next day. The next he was seated in class. Geography. Sean recognized the chip in the edge of his desktop. It was one of his favorite classes, that and French. Both held the promise of distant lands and endless adventure.

  Except Carver was standing at the front of the class. “Ready to begin?”

  Sean looked around. “Where’s Dillon?”

  “He was invited. He did not come.”

  Invited. For some reason, the word caused Sean to feel a rush of very real fear. The vision wavered, and Carver almost vanished. He heard the man say, “Hold fast.”

  He did, but only to say, “I won’t go without him.”

  Carver frowned, but he did not say what momentarily stained his features. Instead, he said, “This is an optional course.”

  “Dillon won’t fail for not showing up?”

  “Correct. There will be opportunities offered you both as you proceed. Chances to grow in optional directions.”

  Sean stretched out legs he knew actually weren’t there. But it didn’t matter, as logic had no place in a dream where he was talking to a man who held the mythical future in the palm of a hand he no longer had. “So let’s get started.”

  Carver pointed at the blank blackboard. “Pay careful attention.”

  And then the instructor vanished. Not even a poof. Like he had never been there. Which was good for a laugh, since Sean wasn’t actually there either.

  As soon as it started, Sean was locked in. The blackboard melted like a movie screen coming to life. The background was blue like the sky at dawn. The letters were gold. They swam into view, and as they appeared a woman chanted in a language that was not spoken but rather sung. Her voice sounded almost regal, a remarkable mix of age and timeless wisdom and music. Sean could not see her, and did not care.

  Eventually she asked him, “Would you like to speak with me?”

  “Sing,” Sean corrected. “Sing with you. And the answer is most definitely yes.”

  He spoke the words in the language he had heard the movers use. A language that carried a promise to go farther and faster than he had ever thought possible. And he was not just speaking the words as they appeared on the blackboard that was no longer there. He was joining. As he spoke, he realized here was the
secret of this race, a unique component of their culture. Speaker and listener not only communicated words but also shared a hint of the underlying emotions. Sean and his instructor sang back and forth, and in doing so, shared the moment.

  It wasn’t possible to weep in his sleep. Even so, Sean knew that was what he wanted. The experience of learning this language called Serenese was that intensely beautiful.

  8

  Saturday mornings were usually good for a lazy snooze until whenever. Dinner that evening was the one meal the family tried to have together. But the past couple of years, nobody had tried very hard. Sean knew something was wrong between his parents, and it was getting worse. He was pretty sure Dillon knew the same thing. But they never spoke about it. Living it was already tough enough.

  Only that Saturday, Dillon’s alarm went off at five thirty. They were due next door at six.

  As Sean described the dream, Dillon buried his face in his cereal bowl and refused to meet Sean’s eyes. When he was done, Dillon spooned up the last bits, then asked, “Do you remember any of the language?”

  “I think so.”

  “Tell me some.”

  The words swam up unbidden, easy as his own English. Sean told his brother, “You need to come with me next time.”

  Dillon stared. “What did you say?”

  When Sean explained, Dillon got a sad look and did not speak again until they had crossed the two yards and entered the open front door. When Carver entered from the kitchen, Dillon asked, “I’m not in trouble for not showing up?”

  “There are no down-checks. Either you pass or you fail,” Carver assured him.

  Sean didn’t like the misery he had caused in his brother. They fought constantly. There was growing friction in many areas of their lives. But they faced the outside world together, and he hated how Dillon started the day feeling like he might be left behind. So he repeated the words he had said the night before. “I’m not going without Dillon.”

  Carver’s frown did not return. Instead, he merely said, “Noted.”