Astra: Synchronicity (2 page)

A phantom drop of water touched his hand. He
glanced up at the dreary sky but realized it had been his
imagination. Since moving to the seaside village of Bordelaise
years ago, the weather cultivated its own personal vendetta against
him. He sometimes found himself riding home in the rain after a
perfectly clear day. Overcast mornings often produced no
precipitation at all, except for the days he rode his hoverbike.
The cruel joke summarized his life.

His wrist implant chirped, and he sighed at
the reminder of another long day of work ahead of him. He'd stuck
around far longer than the minute he'd promised Lyneea. The two of
them spent less and less time together anymore, a fact he had been
trying to rectify but working twelve-hour days made it next to
impossible.

He darted back inside the house to the
bathroom, where he washed his hands and combed his short peppery
hair one last time. A week-old beard roughened his face the same as
most men throughout Astra. He wore a waistcoat—something no one
younger than fifty would be caught dead in. His designer shoes were
a cross between loafers and military boots; he bought them in 2285
for two thousand dollars, and he planned to wear them until the day
they fell apart.

When he walked into the kitchen, he snatched
a piece of toast from his plate and took a bite out of it. Lyneea
stood in the corner of the room in her blue scrubs cursing about
their housework robot. "Damn piece of Chara junk…"

It was their third robot this year. For some
reason, they never had much luck with them. One thing or another
was always wrong: fried circuits, not following commands, sometimes
they didn't turn on at all. When he sent them in for repair, no one
could tell them what caused the problem. She claimed their shoddy
workmanship was the issue, though his coworkers joked she had the
touch of death. After hitting their current robot on the back a few
times, it turned on and went about tidying up the house.

He sauntered over to her and put his hands
around her waist. Her warm mulatto skin imparted her with a
perpetual tan. "Thank you for breakfast, baby. I'll see you
tonight. We should go for a drive along the coast."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and
kissed him. "In the Maclaurin? I'd like that. Hopefully the rain
will stay away."

After exchanging his leather jacket for a
raincoat, he dashed out the door to avoid being late. He grabbed
his VRD helmet off the porch and put it on before climbing onto the
hoverbike. The moment he turned the key, the bike roared to life.
He revved the engine and let its wicked howl wash over him. The
sound roused the memory of his first time around the block on his
very first bike. His soul still coursed with that love, and under
its spell, the rest of the world disappeared.

The virtual display from the dash sprung up
inside his helmet. The dizzying information gave him a headache
until he'd gotten used to the vivid gauges and readouts strewn
across his visual threshold. In a neighboring driveway, Kenneth
Dodd exited his beachfront villa and approached his vehicle. The
burly man waved when he spotted the hoverbike, and Magnius returned
the gesture to be polite.

When he pulled away from his sprawling manor,
he noticed ominous clouds on the western horizon. The bluish
sunlight gave them an abnormal glow. On a clear day, a third of the
aquamarine sky was filled with a sapphire gas giant: Nuage, a
supergiant that orbited Vega once every eleven years.

Fantasti approximated a fairy tale world in
the truest sense. Their erratic day-to-night schedule and distance
from Vega gave rise to an abundance of unusual plants in all shades
of the rainbow with needles for leaves and wide branching
structures that grew no more than a few meters high. From afar the
pinnon trees resembled cotton candy, but they were hell to deal
with. He'd returned looking like a war veteran rather than a
manager after pruning them on more than one occasion.

The sky was by far the most amazing sight on
Fantasti. Many considered this moon to be the most beautiful place
in Astra. On clear days and nights, the violent storms of Nuage
unfolded above in stunning patterns. He'd often sit in the backyard
and watch the battle rage in those hydrogen-helium clouds—a war of
epic proportions to protect its precious diamond core.

The fishery sat on the coast ten miles away
down a rural highway. Part of him resented his parents for
burdening him with the task of managing it. He should've sold it,
but he felt indebted by blood. Now, all the frustrations were
his.

On the open road he and his machine merged
into a single entity to which the world didn't exist anymore. The
warm air caressed him as he sailed at breakneck speeds, and the
temporary rush liberated his mind. He needed a vacation before the
demands of everyone else came crashing down and broke him. But for
now, cathartic jaunts on his hoverbike would have to suffice.

He parked in his usual spot outside his
office window near a peach pinnon and crouched to avoid its
razor-sharp needles. When he replaced his helmet in the storage
compartment beneath his seat, he didn't see his briefcase. In his
haste to leave home, he'd forgotten it and all the documents for
his meeting with the food safety commission today. He had no time
to return for it.

Morning dew soaked the pavement, and the
scent of fresh rain blew in off the ocean. When he jogged inside,
he could taste the sea salt on his lips. His brisk stride led him
straight to the entrance of the toffee-colored building covered in
stucco.

"Good morning, Mr. Zoleki."

Magnius heard his secretary greet him the
instant he opened the door to the main office. He took off his coat
and fished out a pair of glasses, tinted beige to match his cravat.
A holdover fad from the late 70's that faded when ascots made a
brief comeback.

He forced himself to smile. "Good morning,
Justine. How was your weekend?"

She flipped her long black bangs away from
her eyes and grinned. "Fabulous. I spent it holed up in Cardinal
Point with Alex."

"Alex, I keep hearing about the fabulous
Alex." As he approached her desk, he took off his coat and draped
it over his left arm. "You two getting hitched anytime soon?"

Justine lowered her head and blushed.
"Doubtful. You know my luck when it comes to men. I'm a freak
magnet. Remember the last one?"

"You mean, Jon, the one who peed in the sink
all the time?"

"No, Eddie…the one who wore more make-up than
I did." She sighed and rustled through the mess of paraphernalia on
her desk before thrusting a large, tablet computer into his hands.
"You are in the news today."

On the screen blazed a picture of him leaving
a restaurant with Lyneea, presumably when they'd gone out Saturday
evening. He scanned the headline: Zoleki's Date Night. Magnius
grimaced when he noticed it was the handiwork of Leslie White. "It
must've been a slow weekend for
Viva Vega
. I don't suppose
she's stopped hounding me for an interview."

"Of course she hasn't. And I'll tell you for
the umpteenth time you should just do it and get it over with."

The words in front of him read like a cheap
melodrama: "Matt Zoleki is always a little reserved, but the hunky
mogul—clad in a leather jacket and acid washed jeans—made time for
his wife with a romantic dinner at Fazio's. The couple of five
years enjoyed a relaxing day around the city. The late stop capped
off an all-day outing for the pair, who attended a charity lunch
for Mercy Hospital before catching Mozart's Fifth at Orchestra
Hall. 'They were totally into each other,' a source says of the
couple. 'He was very polite to all the servers. And in person he's
so hot!'
Viva Vega
also learned he left a 50 dollar tip for
the lucky waiter."

He glanced back toward Justine, and his lips
curled into a frown. "Do people actually see me this way?"

She raised her eyebrows at being put on the
spot. "You are an icon, Mr. Zoleki. Your charitable gala always
attracts all the who's who in the American Federation. Face it,
you're an attractive, savvy businessman that a lot of people want
to find out more about."

"Is that why you took this job?"

"I took the job because I needed a job."

Magnius eyed her suspiciously for a moment.
"Mmm-hmm." He returned his attention to the image on the screen.
"I'm not a celebrity, and I never asked to be famous. I just want
to do my job and help people and not be followed around with
photographers hiding in bushes." He tossed the comtab back to the
pile on her desk in disgust.

"I guess as long as we're on the subject of
bad news, the shipment scheduled to leave for Rêve this afternoon
didn't get sorted and packed over the weekend. With Greg and Bert
on vacation and the fact we've been undermanned for months—"

"I know." He ran his fingers through his
hair. "I'll take care of it."

"What about your meeting with the
inspectors?"

"They can wait. Or they can leave." Magnius
slipped into his office to hang up his coat before hurrying out to
the warehouse.

The clean smell of the sea calmed him. He
hadn't meant to snap at Justine, but the strain of his job had
caught up with him. Even with some of the best wages offered on the
planet, the labor shortage frustrated him. Too many people headed
off to college looking to get rich quick. Success stories were so
publicized that many went for broke on unrealistic dreams leaving
an entire generation of disenchanted people who spent more time on
break than working.

With his employees readying the boats for the
high seas, the warehouse had been deserted. His inability to swim
kept him grounded on the docks, but he helped in every way he
could. An empty transport sat outside the fish locker, a large
freezer that stored fish waiting to be shipped off-world. He
unlocked it and glanced around the warehouse to see if anyone else
was around. When he was satisfied that he was alone, he cracked his
knuckles and went to work.

He stared into the fish locker at the crates
with an intense fury. In an act of focused concentration, he
furrowed his brow at them, and his scalp began to burn as though
sulfuric acid had been poured on his head. The scalding pain
dissipated as it spread but did not go away. It made his whole head
throb and nudged him to the brink of a migraine. He'd never gotten
used to the sensation, and it was the main reason why he never
learned to use his powers as casually as other psions did.

With a slight flick of his wrist, a crate
whisked through the air, and he stacked them aboard the transport.
He was by no means a master of telekinesis, but over the years he'd
taught himself to fine tune the ability. Each one took his
unwavering concentration due to their size and weight. They
contained a hundred pounds of fish apiece, and Rêve was scheduled
to get two tons of tuna. If luck was on his side, the job wouldn't
take more than fifteen minutes.

Something about the boxes didn't look right.
He stopped a crate midair and examined it. "Hold on a second," he
said. "That's the salmon. The salmon's not going. Dammit." He began
to move it back toward the locker.

All of a sudden, a buzzing sound echoed
throughout the warehouse. He touched his left wrist but his implant
wasn't the source of the noise. His heart jumped when he spun
around and saw Lyneea behind him silencing her pager's klaxon. The
distraction caused the crate he'd left hanging in the air to crash
on the ground, sending an explosion of frozen fish and icy
splinters careening everywhere.

Both of them whirled to look and stood there
staring uncomfortably at the mess, not quite sure what to say to
one another for some time. He'd never told her he was a psion, and
she hated them with a passion. It had never mattered until today,
and the weight of her silence made him feel like the biggest
asshole in the known galaxy.

She held his briefcase out and put it down in
front of her. "Yeah, you forgot this at the house."

"Lyneea, I can explain—"

"Don't." She stared at him full of regret at
having seen his obvious display of power, but it was too late to
change that. She clenched her fleece jacket shut around her chest,
the one she wore during the summer because she was always cold, and
crossed her arms. "When were you going to tell me?"

"Never? Please don't be angry. I know it was
a huge mistake to hide it from you, and I'm an asshole for doing
it, but it isn't a big deal."

"Isn't a big deal? Are you kidding me? You're
one of
them
. How many innocent people have you murdered? How
many?"

"I don't—just let me explain."

"There's nothing to explain. You hear me?
Nothing. After what that mind raper did to my family. To my
mother!" She hauled back and slapped him with all her strength.
"You bastard."

Although she'd telescoped the strike well in
advance, he let her hit him. By every account, he deserved it.
Mind raper
…coming from his wife, the derogatory name stung
worse than his face did. That insult had always referenced other
psions, ones who epitomized lawlessness and immorality. Not
him.

He grabbed her wrists before she lashed out
again. "I wasn't the one who mind raped her. Look at me—do you
think I could ever do something like that?"

"I don't know what you're capable of.
Anything, if you're hungry enough. I'd be a fool to think you
wouldn't kill me if you needed to."

"I'm not—ugh, I never wanted this to
happen."

"What to happen? For me to find out the man I
married is a killer? I have no idea who you are anymore. You're
certainly not the man I fell in love with. You used me, you son of
a bitch."

"I am the man you fell in love with. Being a
psion made me who I am today. Can you really blame any of us for
hiding it?"