Ancestor

  (Planet Gaea—Anier headquarters

  Soldor 14, A.E. 1318, E120)

  Mother Gaea felt a hand on her shoulder. She jerked, swiveling her head to see a familiar man stepping up beside her. He was tall with black hair combed neatly back, dressed tidily in a long-tailed suit, his every mannerism businesslike. “It’s time,” he said quietly.

  She nodded. She tried to form a response, but it got stuck in her throat, so she shut her mouth and quietly followed the man. She was in the main Anier headquarters in what used to be the capital of Starklett, a grand city and one of the few places in the world the Anier had not yet abased. Well, aside from constructing their own buildings such as this. It was framed in metal and hideous to look at, with flat glass windows and no decorative style. As she followed the tall man through the hall, the electric lighting cast eerie, ominously flickering shadows on the floor.

  Mother Gaea, as they called her, was not in the condition she once was. When they’d found her, she’d been but a girl of thirteen years, and she couldn’t be certain how many decades had passed. One could almost mistake her youthful face for that of a girl, but for the wrinkles and the scars, and her dark hair was now streaked with grey. On one hand, she felt as though she hadn’t aged a day, but on the other . . . she was beaten and worn, and her very bones told her so. How much longer could she keep living like this? How long until her body just disintegrated into dust and blew away on the wind?

  “The creature is being kept under the tightest security,” the man said out of nowhere, turning to look at her as he walked. “You are in no danger.”

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  “Thanks,” she mumbled. They had told her many things about these incredible life-forms that could destroy or save humanity, but she didn’t know what to believe anymore. Did her beliefs matter? Her feelings? No. She couldn’t save a single soul. But . . . danger to her? That was the farthest worry from her mind.

  The tall man led her down one last hallway with warning signs labeling the walls, and finally through a door marked: Test Subjects—Do not enter without armed protection. Inside, filtered electric lights cast an unsettling blue glare around a long chamber with many large glass tanks lining one wall. At the end was a T, and as they approached it, they met up with two more of the Anier and a half-dozen armed guardsmen, who stood watching something in a cage. A big cage, some ten feet tall and spanning the width between one wall and the other.

  Mother Gaea frowned, trying to get a view of the cage and the creature contained therein. A rising lump in her throat and a feeling of dread told her she didn’t want to see it, yet at the same time it triggered her scientist’s fascination. She glanced back at the man who had led her there, and then moved forward, maneuvering around the stout guards to get a view of the cage.

  When she did, she gasped.

  The two other Anier turned to look at her, and one said, “This, Mother Gaea, is a Cydenges. Look well.”

  She wanted to tear her eyes away from it, but she couldn’t. It was terrible . . . but beautiful as well, as though designed by a skilled artist. A predator of enormous size, capable of mass-destruction.

  The well-dressed man who had led her to the containment room said, “The cage is heavily reinforced and lined with copper, which has proven to be the only insulant effective at inhibiting their energy manipulation abilities. That is their most feared trait, after all.”

  Mother Gaea nodded with a gulp. They had already attacked multiple times, and she had seen the destruction the Cydenges could wreak upon Gaea, but never had she laid eyes on one. Look well. She did just that. This was the future of Gaea, after all. One way or another.

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