Deception

Prologue

2006 - Tumestan

One Hollie was dead, now another.

He had a pretty good idea why.

Not prone to crying, he sat in his Chesterfield swivel chair, elbows resting on the study desk overlooking the lush-green of his Adelaide estate, face in his hands. His throat tight and dry, moisture accumulated in his eyes.

Why hadn’t he seen it coming?

She could have asked him.

Instead, Hollie had chosen defiance. She’d run into the woods with something that didn’t belong to her and had no idea how to use.

How had she figured it out? When had she stolen the box containing the tools for creating a portal? He’d never find out now; although, one day, maybe he would. Thepts had their ways.

He wiped a tear from his face.

His left fist shaky, he kept pressing it onto his heart.

The death shouldn’t surprise him. A lot of people with this gene died young, not because it caused an illness but for the begrudging of others, most often family members. People with this gene were hunted, kidnapped, driven to despair and suicide – or murdered.

The ability was kept a secret, the child educated by a past-master and memories of the person they’d acceded from.

Hollie had none of that.

Had they realised their precious gift had escaped, that it’d been taken from their planet? Would they come looking for it now?

Earth was the one place it should never have gone to, the abandoned planet, the planet reserved for the most narcissistic, aggressive kind. Albeit their humans showed a high genetic potential that was tapped into from time to time. Earth was the second of the four planets his ancestors had sought out to house individuals with specific characteristics – characteristics that had been determined by an algorithm centuries ago.

Had his sacrifices, his mission to protect the gene, panned out after all these years of doubt?

The flicker of hope was dashed by a larger one of alarm – or just the opposite?

Time would tell.

The bigger question now was: How could he protect the next one in line?

Chapter 1

2025 - Freshly baked brownies

The window of the car opened at my touch and Gran leant in to see me off. My sister Bree was driving me to the airport, so I could start a new chapter in my life away from those two meddling, interfering women, I loved dearly.

‘Talent is an accident of genes – and a responsibility,’ Gran quoted with a determined chin-drop and a one-eyed wink I was pretty sure I was to take seriously.

‘Have a good flight, dearie,’ she said.

‘There is no such thing as a good flight for me.’ The hypnophones would take care of that.

The pebbles of the driveway crunched under the wheels as the car pulled away and I waved a kiss to my favourite person. Gran waved back, her sad face lingering in my mind.

‘Why did you take the job, El? It’s so far away, I can’t keep an eye on you,’ Bree complained a few minutes later, hitting the same dint as Gran. It was her last chance to change my mind.

‘It’s an outdoorsy job.’

‘There are plenty of those around Adelaide.’

‘Not with aggressive bee colonies though.’

Bree sighed and shook her head. A while later, she asked, ‘I was just thinking about that quote gran threw at you. Talent is an accident - and what was it?’

‘Talent is an accident of genes – and a responsibility. It’s Alan Rickman.’

I sighed. Fuck genes and fuck talent. What I wouldn’t give for a taste of ordinary. Taking responsibility for something I didn’t ask for was also as endearing as a pile of dirty dishes and about as inspiring as dead moss on a bonsai.

‘I guess what Gran meant was to not let my freakishness ruin my life.’

‘She has a point.’

I snorted.

Bree elbowed me. ‘Joking! It’s just … we both worry what will happen to you without us. You know, I won’t be there to find your lost school jumpers and all.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘I’ll be fine, I’m not fifteen anymore.’

We were quiet for a while after that. I let myself drift into the ether of thoughts that weren’t all my own, existing in another dimension. It was an intriguing void, consisting of swirls of fairy floss in the atmosphere, spun from letters of the alphabet I could catch and thread into snippets of information I shouldn’t be able to know. I’d had to keep my access to it a secret ever since Gran realised what I could do.

A curious grey mass whirled around me as I surrendered myself to it, and familiar strands of words and symbols – some morphing into pictures – seized my attention. I focused my mental energy on the gluggy blob of material, unravelling it like a ball of wool.

‘Are the lights on in there?’ Bree waved her hands in front of my face. ‘We’re here.’

‘Oh, sorry. I drifted off.’ I blinked a few times to clear my head.

‘Tell me something new.’ She shook her head. ‘Or, better yet, tell me that, in future, you will focus, keep time, your appointments, and your mouth shut when somebody lies.’

‘Ha-ha.’

Bree grinned, ‘But you need not hang on to your unhealthy self-restraint.’

‘Thanks, it’s called voluntary abstinence. And it’s not unhealthy.’

I sighed. I would have liked to have a love life, yet as it’d been non-existent for a while, it was the reason I had to keep dreaming.

After parking the car, we got out and Bree swung my backpack out of the boot like it weighed nothing.

‘For God’s sake, be careful where you’re going! I can’t scrape you off the road in the outback.’

We both grinned.

‘And wear your glasses, El,’ she pleaded, ‘otherwise you’re not gonna survive five minutes.’

‘Actually, it’s probably the one place where I might survive nicely without them, thank you very much.’

I wasn’t naturally clumsy but as my cognitive kink needed mending; the grey mass of the cyber-noise being too heavy in the city; I had to wear special glasses to prevent the irritation of my brain causing unbearable headaches especially when being exposed to it for too long. Those glasses helped but because they caused tunnel vision, they were the reason I stumbled often.

I hated wearing those clunky, old glasses people had always teased me about.

A research grant and a part-time ranger’s job near Alice Springs later, I’d have no need for them.

Vanity and independence were smelling like freshly baked brownies.

I was settling into my airplane seat when I noticed the dark-brown hair of the man in the aisle seat opposite, a row in front of me. He smiled. I was contemplating his tired smile and what it meant but got distracted by a flight attendant handing me my hypnophones with a friendly hello.

Hypnophones were introduced in 2023, after an American terrorist hacked into the flight computer via the entertainment system, fatally crashing the aircraft with over seven hundred people on board; now they were legally required to be worn on domestic and international flights.

Designed to ease the stress of flying, they sent the wearer into a lulling sleep with pleasant dreams as soon as the cap touched the head. With all passengers asleep for the entire duration of the flight, air-travel was instantly safer from attack by accident or will. Hypnophones were also supposed to make the wearer wake up refreshed and relaxed on arrival. Huh, yeah. Right.

Though I hated flying, and the terror of free-falling during turbulence was enough to make me wish for a dead sleep, I would rather endure it than the extreme nightmares the hypnophones plunged me into.

I was so desperate after my disastrous first flight, the dreams causing me anxiety for months afterwards, that I’d secretly researched the HYP centre’s database (HYP was the company which programmed the hypnophones for each passenger). With the help of my special ability to comb through the cyber-noise, I was able to access the instruction manual for the most popular hypnophones design and read the lot. On my second trip, I perfected the few tricky moves needed to switch them off, before putting them on my head. I had to pretend to sleep for the entire flight, but it was better than the alternative.

Soon the airplane taxied into the take-off position, I breathed deeply and clasped my armrests.

A stranger was lying on top of me.

I wasn’t afraid. Instead, I accepted his presence as a given, welcoming him with open arms.

My body responded to him in elaborate fashion: heart thumping, my fingers itching to explore his smooth, shiny skin over lean muscle, my mouth keen to taste those lush lips that lay so tantalisingly close.

Time was of no importance. Where was I?

Though my mind was centred on the warm flesh covering my quivering body, the obvious obstacle of the man in bed with me, I was certain I hadn’t visited this place before.

Faster and faster, we moved to our hearts’ rhythm, riding on waves of joy until we both clutched the edge of bliss …

A delicious warmth spread through me as I enjoyed the mutual moment of serenity. Who was this man? Where had I seen him before? Questions pushed to the forefront of my mind. Unanswered, they kept swirling, unrelenting, demanding.

He was completely foreign to me, and yet … his features were so familiar.

Before I could grasp the corresponding memory to solve the puzzle, alertness claimed me. I could hear my own ragged breathing coming down from the high, but I wasn’t in that moment anymore. The stranger with those mesmerising green eyes was gone.

A sucking noise had startled me into awareness.

Damn it. Why did I have to wake? It had felt so real. I kept my eyelids shut, trying to hold on to the pictures in my head, revelling in my ebbing release, tiny muscles twitching.

I sighed and blinked; my hands still tightly clasped around my armrests, as if to steady myself from the pelvic excitement. That was the most bizarre dream I’d had for a while.

The man on the opposite aisle seat, one row in front of me, had a shiny cloth stuck around his head. The cloth was sheer but looked heavy, with a metallic shine. It clung tightly onto his shoulders. He seemed peaceful, taking deep, even breaths. Did it help him sleep?

Just before I closed my eyes, hoping to drift back to my precious dream, I peered onto the screen: twenty minutes until Alice Springs.

Through my lashes I was aware of a hand stretching out, pulling the cloth from the man’s head. The revealed passenger looked like sleeping beauty, his cheeks, and lips pale pink. My eyelids drooped and I drifted off into the arms of my handsome stranger with eyes like liquid moss, once more.

We finally landed. The plane rolled smoothly along the tarmac, and I breathed deeply, stretching my limbs.

Well, that flight hadn’t been terrible, considering I couldn’t rely on the comfort of the hypnophones like all the other passengers.

I had never heard of anyone having the same problems I had; and, believe me, I’d tried to research it – despite my intense dislike for computers. Nothing had provided any explanation for why my brain rejected the hypnophones, as if it was some kind of torture rather than the embrace others seemed to experience. I accepted it in the end. It wasn’t the only bodily hiccup I had to learn to live with over the years.

Everybody started to move from their seats as the plane stopped. The man in the row in front of me was still fast asleep, hypnophones on, slumped in his seat.

I was about two metres from the exit when I removed my old glasses from the collar of my favourite micro-modal T-shirt. The sensation of the material caressing my skin brought back the recent memory of a hand exploring my curves; my cheeks flushed, and I moved along with a grin. A man stood on the end of the gangway, checking his mobile. As I walked further, he raised his head and gazed steadily into my eyes, a shy smile playing on his lips.

Whoa, what was that? The stranger in front of me had an uncanny similarity to the man in my dream.

His eyes were a most amazing swirl of greens and blues, reminding me of the glimmering feathers of a peacock. His eyelashes were long and light brown, the tips dark, as if dipped in ink.

A beautiful shiver ran through my body; I had loved those eyelashes. My throat tightened and I gaped at him.

‘I’m sorry, sir… It—you—’ I murmured incoherently. Blushing, I looked down and I shook my head. What a brainless moment. A pleasant whiff of freshly cut grass caught in my nostrils as I moved away from him, glad my legs were oblivious to my mind’s utter dishevelment. They carried me along until a hot, dust-filled breeze woke me.

‘No worries,’ he said, his deep voice behind me.

How embarrassing. Gawking like that. But then, he’d returned my stare. Although, if I was honest, he’d been most interested in my boobs. Get a grip, Ellie. It was much more likely the quote on the T-shirt front: ‘I can tell truth from shit. Do tempt me’. Courtesy of my gran and her ‘get-Ellie-more-assertive-campaign’.

Whatever it was, it would be nice to get to know him.

I imagined my psychologist sister trying to deal with the fact a version of my dream-man had materialised not even an hour after he’d appeared in my dream. No doubt she would give me another one of her deep and meaningful, psychoanalytic explanations. Most likely a Freudian dream interpretation, probably linked to my non-existent love-life.

I continued towards the terminal, following the crowd heading for the baggage claim. There was no chance I would get to know him, was there? Silly of me! If he saw me with my geeky glasses on, he would surely retreat.

Just before I entered the terminal, I noticed the crew’s concerned whispering. As I stopped at the baggage claim carousel an ambulance siren sounded, and a rush of people streamed back toward our plane. I remembered the man. Maybe he hadn’t been sleeping? Oh no, and I’d smiled and walked right past him!

A message zoomed towards me through the cyber noise.

>Bree: Hope ur flight was pleasant. Let me know, as soon as u arrive, I want to know ur safe. luv u :)

>Ellie: Arrived safely. Start breathing again. Luv u 2.

I switched my phone off, hoping to avoid more distracting messages while I figured out where I was heading.

I waited five minutes after my bag dropped onto the carousel, until all the suitcases and bags had been claimed, not admitting to myself that I was actually waiting around for Mr Dream-Come-True, who never showed. Damn it. I quit hanging around and headed towards the taxi queue. Putting my glasses on, I returned to my normal geeky-looking self, feeling like a teenage fool. For all I knew, he could be married, engaged, in love, gay, yeah – or single.

I slid into the backseat of the taxi. As I closed the car door, I glimpsed dark-blond hair in the queue. Craning his neck around the tall passenger in front of him, he was searching the area. A moment later a smile of recognition crossed his face as his gaze fell across the street to a person in a waiting parked car – probably his girlfriend. I sighed as the taxi rolled onto the street, jumping when the driver asked where I was headed.

‘To the Police station please.’