Cytonic

Prologue

A dark sphere appeared before me in the center of the room.

Scud. Was I really going to do this? In my hand, Doomslug fluted nervously.

The sterile whitewashed walls, enormous one-way mirror, and metal tables marked this as some kind of scientific facility. I was on Starsight: the massive space station that housed the regional offices of the Superiority. Up until this past year, I’d never even heard of the Superiority, let alone understood the nuances of how it—as a galactic government—ruled hundreds of different planets and species.

To be honest, I still didn’t understand those nuances. I’m not exactly a “there are nuances to this situation” type of girl. I’m more of an “if it’s still moving, you didn’t use enough ammunition” type of girl.

Fortunately, nuance wasn’t needed at the moment. The Superiority was undergoing a violent military coup. And the new people in charge did not like me. The shouts of the soldiers calling to one another as they searched the facility for me grew louder.

Hence the dark sphere. My only way out was to open a portal to another dimension. I thought of it as the nowhere.

“Spensa,” M-Bot said. “My thoughts…they’re speeding up?”

He hovered nearby, having stuffed himself into a little drone. It was shaped vaguely like a box with wings and a pair of grabber arms on the sides. Two tiny acclivity rings—blue stones that glowed when powered—allowed it to hover, one beneath each wing.

“Um,” he said, “that does not look safe.”

“They use these nowhere portals to mine acclivity stone,” I said. “So there must be a way to return once you go through. Maybe I can get us back with my powers.”

The shouts outside were getting closer; there were no other options. I couldn’t use my powers to hyperjump out of this place, not with the shield that protected the station.

“Spensa!” M-Bot said. “I feel very uncomfortable with this!”

“I know,” I said, slinging my gun over my shoulder by its strap so I could grab his drone by the bottom of its chassis. Then—M-Bot in one hand, Doomslug in the other—I touched the dark sphere, and was sucked through to the other side of eternity.

In a flash I was in a place where time, distance, and matter itself didn’t exist. Here I was formless, a mind—or an essence—with no body. It was as if I were a starship floating in an endless blackness with no stars—with nothing at all to interrupt my view. Every time I hyperjumped using my powers, I briefly passed through this place. I was accustomed to the sensation, but it wasn’t familiar. Just…slightly less terrifying than it used to be.

Immediately I reached my mind out, searching for Detritus—my home. I’d begun to understand my powers in the most basic of ways. I couldn’t go many places with them, but I did know how to get home. Usually.

This time…I strained… Could I do it? Could I hyperjump to Detritus? The blackness around me seemed to stretch, and I could see white spots in the distance. One of those was…Gran-Gran?

If I could connect with her, I thought I could pull myself to her. I pushed harder, but grew worried that I’d draw attention. The delvers lived here. And as soon as I thought of them, I became aware of their presence out there in the darkness. All around me, yet invisible for now.

They didn’t seem to have noticed me yet. In fact…they were fixated on something else.

Pain. Terror.

Something was in pain in here. Something familiar.

The delver. The one I’d prevented from destroying Starsight. It was here in this place, and it was afraid. As I focused on it, it appeared as a white point much brighter than Gran-Gran. It had noticed me.

Please…help…

Delver communication never manifested as actual words; my mind simply translated the impressions, the images, as words. This one needed my help. The others were trying to destroy it.

I didn’t think. Instinctively, I shouted into the nowhere.

HEY!

Hundreds of bright white spots opened around me. The eyes. I could feel their attention on me now, knowing me. The one they’d been fixated on hovered around the outside.

As always, the sight of all those eyes intimidated me. Yet I was a different person now. I’d spoken to one of their kind, connected with it. I’d persuaded it to turn its appetite away from the people of Starsight—by showing the delver that they were alive.

I just needed to do the same thing here. Please. I projected my thoughts toward those eyes, showing them calm understanding, not fear: I am a friend. I am like you. I think. I feel.

I did exactly what I’d done before. The eyes stirred and quivered, agitated. A few drew closer, and I could feel their scrutiny. Followed by…an emotion, so much more powerful. Pervasive, overwhelming, omnipresent.

Hatred.

The delvers—there was no telling how many—accepted that I was alive. Because of my cytonic abilities, they understood me to be a person. Their hatred changed to disgust. Anger. It was worse to know I was alive. It meant the things that had been encroaching upon their realm—persistently bothering them—were self-aware. We weren’t mere insects.

We were invaders.

I tried again, more desperate this time. They rebuffed me. As if…they’d seen what I’d done to the one of their kind, and had prepared themselves to resist the same sort of approach.

I recoiled at the wave of their terrible anger. And I heard a terrified scream. Doomslug? Her shout projected something into my brain, a location.

Home.

The delvers withdrew. I unnerved them, it seemed. They hadn’t expected to find me here. That gave me an opening.

Thanks to Doomslug, I could feel the path. I could get to Detritus. I could see Gran-Gran, and…and Jorgen. Scud, I missed him. I wanted to be near him again, talk to him again. I needed to get home to my friends and help them. The war was going to escalate now that Winzik had seized control of the Superiority.

I almost hyperjumped. But I lingered. Something held me back. An impression, an instinct.

What am I? that singular delver projected in a pleading tone. What are WE?

I’m Spensa Nightshade, I sent to it. A pilot.

Is that all?

It used to be all I cared about. But now…now I’d discovered another side to me. Something frightening, something I didn’t completely understand.

There is a way to learn, the delver sent. In this place. We call it the nowhere. You sensed that, didn’t you?

Yes, I had. But I didn’t want to stay here. I tried to put that option out of my mind. I needed to go home.

But…did my people need me? Just another pilot? I visualized something then. A projection of my own fears? Maybe it was an effect of the nowhere. I saw myself return and rejoin Skyward Flight, fighting…and failing. Failing when the delvers inevitably returned, because a fighter pilot—no matter how skilled—couldn’t defeat them. Failing when the Superiority marshaled the power of its cytonics, hyperjumping whole fleets. Worse, they could manipulate cytonics such as me, exploit weaknesses in our powers.

They’d done that to my father. Turned him against his own flight. Led him to death.

I was a pilot, yes. But pilots weren’t enough.

We knew so little about any of this. We didn’t understand what the delvers were. How could we hope to fight them? We didn’t understand cytonics—up until recently, we’d considered those who had these powers to be “defects.” How could I face opponents like Brade, skilled with their talents, if I ran from who I was?

Home called to me, and I yearned to return. But home didn’t have answers.

Can you show me? I asked the delver. What I am?

Maybe. I don’t even know what I am. There is a place we can learn, a place in the nowhere. A place where…we were all…born…

There are no places in the nowhere, I sent.

Not in its heart, no. But at the fringes there are settlements.

I saw the meaning—the delver spoke of a region where acclivity stone was mined. Another mystery I had never quite understood. How did people go into the nowhere and harvest that rock, if the nowhere was a formless void?

Yes, there were actual places on the fringes. Places important to cytonics. Important to me. The delver put one of these locations into my mind.

I hung trapped between two opposite pulls. One, my desire to go home, to hold Jorgen, to laugh with my friends. The other, something frightening. Unknown. Like the frightening, unknown things in my own soul.

If you come here, the delver sent, it will be difficult to return. Very difficult. And you might get lost…

I felt Doomslug’s mind trembling. The rest of the delvers began to reappear, eyes opening—piercing white holes in reality, burning and hating. They did not want me going where that delver directed.

In the end, that was what prompted my decision. I’m sorry, Jorgen, I sent—hoping he could at least feel the words. I had to choose the path that led to answers. Because in that moment, I was absolutely certain it was the only way to protect the people I loved.

You go home, I told Doomslug. I will find my way later. I grabbed hold of the destination the delver had sent me.

Thank you, the delver projected. I could feel its sincere relief. Seek to walk…the Path of Elders…and remember to not get lost…

Wait! I sent. The Path of Elders?

But the delver withdrew, and I felt the others preparing to attack. So I gave Doomslug a final push to go home, then activated my powers and threw myself into the unknown.