My new story/novel/fanfiction, The Aurora Prophecy, is now available to read after one and a half years of working on this immense project. The Aurora Prophecy is the sequel to Deception, a piece I wrote back in the summer of 2010 and it would be preferable to read that first since it has direct tie-ins. I have partnered with a truly talented artist named Trey McNair "modsoft" in an effort to bring this story to life with artwork to go along with each chapter released weekly, much like RiptideX1090 and Lividity Jones' Reckoning. Anyways, for those of you that like to read fanfiction and look at Mass Effect fan artwork, go ahead and check out The Aurora Prophecyin my blog (subscribe to get updates) on the BSN where you will find links to the art and the story! Chapters will be released weekly since the entire story is done.
I would totally link you the blog from the BSN to here (that is where you will find the fantastic artwork), but fanfiction won't allow that, so just go to the BioWare Social Network - Blogs - search - copy/paste: Deception & The Aurora Prophecy, or go to my profile page on fanfiction and I have it linked there.
I hope you all enjoy our labor of love!
The Aurora Prophecy - Prologue
"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." _Edgar Allan Poe
What is pain?
Is it felt more through emotions—flashbacks and dreams, or does it hit harder through your physical form?
Doctor Julia Liebermann and her husband, Harris Liebermann, also a doctor, in the field of neurology instead of psychology, walked into an elevator. Julia's thoughts were trained on other, more pressing issues than her husband. She let her long silver hair unravel out of the red hat perched proudly on her head after returning home from a Sunday dinner party hosted by one of Julia's long time friends. New York City's skylight came into view through the window as the elevator stretched into the inky black sky, wishing to scoop handfuls of stars away from the vast cosmic ocean. Harris, through his wrinkles, stared at the love of his life. His eyes, like two robin eggs, sat burrowed in a nest of gray and black hair that stared back at Julia's dark chocolate ones. She knew he was going to say something witty or snarky that was going to shatter the blissful silence Julia relished around her husband.
"I really hate those people—your friends."
Julia tossed her head back and said, "Oh Harris, do you really have to follow the 'grumpy-old-mad-scientist' cliché society has bestowed upon the men of your age and intellect?"
Harris rolled down the sleeve of his yellow and white striped button up, long-sleeved shirt. The air-conditioning in the elevator tickled his sweat-freckled arms. Harris hated the summer months.
"I try not to be cliché or anything, Julia, but I cannot stand being around people who watch reality vids like zealots read The Holy Bible. I do not care who the bachelorette chose to marry, nor do I care about asteroid miners who cannot speak proper English. We celebrate stupidity with the vids—we let celebrities make millions of credits by acting like utter imbeciles in front of a camera." Harris inhaled a cubic meter of air and clasped Julia's hand lovingly. "You, my darling, make stupid friends who I cannot be bothered with."
Harris finished with a wide smile that made the corners of his eyes taper, giving him a smug appearance. Luckily for him, Julia recognized this or he would have taken a high velocity hand to the face.
"It is hard living with an elitist. I am being social. Most people our age are not as social as us, so you should be thankful. By the way, I recognize that my friends are not the sharpest tools in the shed—rather, to be fair, they are blunt instruments at the top of the economic food chain."
"And we can see their inadequate work being demonstrated."
"You and I are near the top of the food chain, so don't be too smug," Julia said, lightly punching Harris in the arm.
"We are sharpened, precise predators, you and I. Those people at that dinner party were mice. We, my darling, are hawks."
"Yeah, well...
"You agree with me. Admit it."
"Go away."
Harris chuckled, his laughter crackling like gravel under a combat boot. He noted how Julia's red stained lips snaked into cherry hot razors against her pale skin. Fifty years of marriage and both could read each other like an open book.
Both doctors averted their eyes from each other—hand in hand—and became transfixed on the thousands of yellow lights painted onto the black canvas of New York City as air cars soared above the cityscape. It was their home. Their base of operations. Both Julia and Harris' line of work lifted them onto pedestals to where they could look Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, the Wright brothers, Stephen Hawking, and Emily Dickinson straight in the eye. Both were of the most important and influential people in the history of the galaxy. Much like Emily Dickinson, their work would not become noted by the public as revolutionary until after their deaths. To the military, their assets were of the utmost importance. The most distinguished generals, warriors, and politicians basked in their shadows of importance and no one knew it, except for a select few.
Deep down inside, Harris' guts were squirming—his intestines in a death match. He felt as if a mass of writhing constrictors dwelled in his stomach. The elevator music was unnerving. The saxophone and the strong male singer's voice would usually soothe the most furrowed brow, but this time it felt like it was spurring something onwards. His evolutionary sixth-sense was telling him he was in danger. The lyrics of the song sang about heartbreak, shattered love, and dreams full of black suits and netted veils. Other than being a neurologist and the vice-president of a small, but influential and dangerous group, he was a symbologist and a bit of a literary dissector. His use of a etymological scalpel came in handy on most of the days he worked.
"Harris, what's wrong?"
Harris noticed the grip on his wife's hand had tightened like an impending noose around his own neck.
"I am just thinking about what I saw last night."
"It's nothing but a nightmare. Even though you are gifted, you are still human. Not everything that comes into that thick skull of yours is worth documenting."
Harris sighed and rubbed his forehead—the calcium bulkhead that encased the most important and expensive weapon in the galaxy.
The elevator ceased moving and binged open. They owned a penthouse suite on top of the most prodigious housing complex in the city. A brushed aluminum door stuffed with Kevlar sat mere meters away from the elevator where an armed guard, by the name of Nate, stood sentinel. The Liebermanns had become close friends with the guard and even invited him inside for a couple of dinners. The military provided the couple with Nate as insurance to their property.
"Good evening, Doctor and Doctor Liebermann. Did you have a nice night out?" Nate asked, taking a hand off his holstered pistol.
"We went to the zoo and saw some chimps dressed in expensive, tailored clothes."
"Sorry, Nate." Julia covered Harris' mouth with her scarf. "Ignore the zoo-keeper. He's in a bad mood."
"Will do, ma'am."
"Do you need some food or an energy drink, my darling?"
"No, ma'am." Nate held up a plastic bag containing a twelve-inch sub. "I am locked and loaded for the night."
"Well if you need anything, buzz the doorbell three times."
"Will do, ma'am."
"Come on, Julia. Stop flirting with the guard," mumbled Harris, who gave the security scanner his finger-print and an ocular scan. The metal door snapped open.
"Have a goodnight, Nate. We will see you in the morning when we head off to work."
"Night, ma'am."
Harris Liebermann shut the door and the lights to their home swelled to life. The penthouse was swaddled with high-sheen metal, blonde wood, and burled polished metal which was once the cold hearts of asteroids.
"I need a scotch," grumbled Harris. "And I need to release the contents of my bladder."
"You could have spared me the details," groaned Julia as she wrestled her scarf over a peg jutting from the wall. "I will pour you a scotch, honey."
Harris gave a wave of gratitude before disappearing into the master bathroom to the left of where they were standing. Julia flicked off her red high heels and walked towards the wet bar next to the television. She plucked three ice cubes from a refrigerated bucket with tongs and plopped the flawless ice into two short crystal glasses and filled both of them with two glugs of the one-hundred year old scotch that they had been working on for the past couple of months. Julia dropped herself onto the white, sleek short-backed sofa and rubbed her aching feet. She hated high heels with a burning passion.
"Honey, hurry up. Your ice is weakening your scotch!"
Julia swirled her alcohol and gently smelled the fumes. Burnt oak barrels and musty seaweed assaulted her nose. She sipped the fire and threw her head back, relieved to have left the company of those suited chimps. She really hated her friends and loathed admitting it to her husband as she likes to clash with him on certain subjects for her own amusement. Next time she goes, Julia will instead bring two metal cymbals for them to smash together instead of a nice bottle of sauvignon blanc. They were only good for throwing parties that rivaled Jay Gatsby's but with less sophistication.
Julia felt someone snap a finger next to her left ear. Thinking it was Harris keeping her from dozing off, Julia grinned and turned around meeting only empty space. Puzzled, she turned her head back towards the window yielding a panoramic view of New York City. Sure this place was expensive, but the view they paid for was worth...
"What in the world is that?"
Julia stood from the sofa, her eyes fervently searching for an explainable answer to the thick spider web hanging right in the center of the window that was not there a second ago. With an outstretched hand, she touched the web on the window and felt a hot jet of air whistling through a small hole in the center of the spider web. Like a freight train traveling at the speed of sound, it hit her: the sound had been made by a bullet a moment ago and the snapping noise was a round barely missing her head—breaking the sound barrier. Behind her, Julia heard the door open. Three men in black suits walked through the threshold, all of them professionally wielding handguns—fingers convolved around the triggers. Harris kept a pistol in the kitchen drawer, next to the silverware. Julia hated it being there and thought her husband as a paranoid lunatic for stashing it in the same place they eat and prepared their food. Right now though, she understood why he kept there. Frantically, her mind when through dozens of scenarios.
Why are these men here?
Who are these men?
What are they doing?
How did they get in here?
Why do they have their guns upholstered?
Are they here to save me?
Are they here to hurt me?
Julia's eyes spotted the answer to her question. Behind the black legion of polished leather shoes, red blood trailed in their wake. Nate's corpse could be seen laying in the small hallway—the back of his head a basted crimson cavity weeping extensive amounts of blood onto the marble flooring where the intruder's shoes had acted as paintbrushes, the soles composing a gruesome mosaic. The leader of the pack flicked Nate's thumb into the trashcan next to the island in the kitchen, disposing it after using his thumbprint to open the door. She shied her attention away from their bodyguard's cadaver, knowing full well they must have done the same thing to his eye.
Julia dropped her scotch and screamed, "Who are you and what are you doing in my house?" loud enough so that Harris could hear her cries of warning.
"Doctor Liebermann," said the man that had cut off Nate's poor thumb. "You may call me Black Widow. These are my friends: Brown Recluse and Funnel Web. If you will, I would like to talk to you. Now, could you please take a seat?" asked Black Widow with a charismatic smile and a tender voice.
Julia looked into what appeared to be the leader's face. His icy blue eyes pierced hers. They were so intense, it reminded Julia of a cat's tapeta lucida when caught in a beam of concentrated light.
"Why are you named after spiders?" asked Julia while taking a seat. She found herself very calm and never realized she had the courage to ask such a question to Death himself.
"We do not want to give out our real names, now would we?" he responded like he was talking to a child. Not giving out their real names was important. It meant they were here to do no bodily harm to her.
Julia eyed Nate and swallowed hard.
"I see you dropped your drink," continued the leader. "May I pour you another? I didn't mean to startle you."
Julia looked to her feet noticing her scotch had wet the floor and the crystal glass was shattered, much like the foundations of her life that had been sturdy up until this very moment.
Now finding herself angry, she blurted out, "Executing my guard—my friend, and having the bullet pass through the wall and almost hitting me in the head isn't very subtle."
"I admire your wit. Now, let me pour you another glass, please."
"I can pour another for myself," she said quickly, wanting to hide Harris' glass that was still on the wet bar.
"No need for that. Consider me company, this is your house. I do not want you to put in more effort than you already have and trust me, you are going to need your energy. Now please, sit."
The smile on his face reminded her of a child's, but his eyes were that of chilled stone chiseled by a psychopathic killer in the sound-proof basement of their home.
"Yes sir," Julia said.
The man walked over to the wet bar and poured two glasses—one for himself and one for Julia. Mrs. Liebermann turned around to study Brown Recluse and Funnel Web. Their faces were stoic behind the aviator sunglasses. They were cliché bad guys. Although they were laughable at best in the movies, up close, they were ominous—broad shouldered, sharply angled chins, and capable of taking life. One kicked Nate's limp arm out of the way and shut the door. Julia and Harris were locked in with the real-life predators. Now she felt like the mouse and their company were the hawks trained by Mongolian hunters of which were used to kill the wolves of Siberia.
"What do you want from me?" asked Julia, becoming nervous. "And how did you get past all of the security protocol? You had special access to the elevator up here. You were able to make it past the security downstairs. Who, exactly, are you three?"
The leader sat on the sofa next to Julia and handed her a glass of scotch tenderly.
Ignoring the last part of her question, he said, "It is not me that wants something from you, rather the government," he sighed, almost sadly. He took a sip of scotch and hissed. "Good stuff."
"Why did you kill Nate?"
"Nate? Was that his name?" the leader asked, pivoting in his seat to stare at the front door.
"Yes. He was a good person. Why did you kill him?"
"He was in my way," the leader stated matter-of-factly. "A mere obstacle. I also needed his eye and thumb. He was being... restless."
"You're a sick bastard."
Black Widow leaned forward, the scotch on his breath batting at Julia's face.
"My parents abused me as a child. You know how that goes. People who are abused as children grow up to be... a bit rotten in the head. I tortured animals as a kid. I remember catching a little bird once—a martinet noir we called them in Paris, more commonly known as a swift. Well, I caught it in a trap I made. It was a beautiful male with rich chocolate feathers, much like your eyes, Julia." The Black Widow made hand gestures to show his enthusiasm about this animal. "I fished an empty olive jar out of the recycle bin behind my house, put the bird in there, filled it with water, and buried it in the ground. I waited a month to take out this specimen I had preserved in the water. I checked off the days on my calendar with the utmost pride and anticipation until I hit the thirty day mark. I unburied the bird-"
"Stop it!"
"What, do you not like my story, Julia?"
"I grew up with canaries."
"Ah, I see. Torturing birds is a sensitive subject for you." The leader's eyes were drowned in sadness and sorrow. "I didn't mean to offend you, Julia."
The Black Widow put a hand on her leg. It was cold to the touch. The leader stood, gently cupping his perfectly tanned hand. Julia could have sworn he was a supermodel. His blond hair was combed perfectly to one side and he looked beautiful, even to men's standards. If she were to pass him on the street, she wouldn't have given him a second thought—would have never known what he was capable of.
"You are a scientist, Julia. You deal with the science of dreams, I know this. Scientists like straight up facts, you enjoy blunt answers—no nonsense, no magic, no nothing, yes?"
Through a quivery voice, Julia, as strongly as possible, said, "Yes."
She wondered where Harris had gone—if he was going to save her. Maybe she could get to the gun in the silverware cabinet.
"I am here to kill you and your husband."
Julia's vision flashed white and her skin became prickly and hot. Her breath was sucked from every bud of alveoli.
"Why?"
"Your husband has seen something that should not have been seen."
"What... did he see?" Julia asked.
"I believe he spoke of a dream, possibly a nightmare he had?"
"Yes, he did."
"Speaking of which, where is he right now? Where is your beloved husband?"
The leader had a frown on his face and ran a finger along the rim of his glass.
Julia noticed a wedding ring strapped around his ring finger. Julia feared for his wife.
"He is at the lab, working on his work."
"Why then is there a second glass of scotch already poured before I walked into your home?"
"I..."
"No no no, the first thing you should know about me is that I do not like being lied to. I hate being lied to. As a child, all I was fed were lies," he said in a low voice, like a therapist talking to a patient. "If he were at his office, or to put in better terms, his lab, he would have been gunned down by my acquaintances and I a few hours ago. Your cell has come to an end. I have seen what your husband has seen. This dream that he spoke of was experienced by every single Dreamcatcher; all ten of them. You know how it is—dreams are like a web." He pointed at the cracked glass sprawled out in the center of the window. " I am the spider of this particular web—the predator who hunts and eats weaker prey." He leaned in and smiled. "You two, search the house," the leader said, pointing his scotch towards the bedroom. The Black Widow softly laid his pistol on one of the sofa's red pillows.
"If you are going to kill me, then at least tell me who you are," said Julia in defeat.
"Ah, a true scientist. They always want the answers, and as you know, hard to get answers deserve lots of effort." The Black Widow tapped a finger on his chin and closed his eyes in thought. He threw his leg over a knee and Julia watched his foot swing madly to a tune only played in his head. "I guess you deserve the right hand side of this puzzling equation. Julia, I am a Dreamcatcher's nightmare. In your line of work, you call us Dream Spiders, or S.P.I. . We are the government's insurance to their little freak show that you two run. We are the unknown, unwanted shepherds who keep your flock tamed, and if need be, eradicate the herd if a parasite infects every member."
"Black Widow, Harris Liebermann is not here," said one of the assailants.
"I trust your judgment, Brown Recluse," said the leader who stood up. Funnel Web, Black Widow's accomplice, thumbed the safety off his handgun.
"He is only one man and there are the other three we need to find. The fourth, well we need to figure out who and where he is," said the Black Widow. Julia was at a loss. Her mind was spinning so fast she wanted to puke.
Where had Harris gone?
Does he know more than me?
"Julia, I really hate to do this," said the leader. Julia looked up from her glass of scotch to meet the cyclopean stare of a muzzle from the leader's pistol. "You too know the secret we are trying to hide—the government is trying to hide. You cannot walk out of this apartment, rather we will have the courtesy of walking you out in a body bag."
"F-for my family's sake, shoot me in the chest, I would like to have an open casket. My children would like to see me one last time."
The leader's eyes, without wavering or showing a single sign of emotion except for inconvenience, lowered his pistol to Julia's throbbing heart.
"Any last words?" he asked Julia.
"I want to spare the poor bastard who dresses my body. It is already an inconvenience that he will have to undress me and pump me full of preservatives. My old body would have made him sick with a hole in my head," she chuckled, never believing she had this sort of bravery.
With a smile over what Julia had said, the leader shot her in the chest, as per request. A pink cloud exploded from her back, airbrushing the white cushions on the couch. A rose bud blossomed over her heart as she fell backwards, into a sleeping position on the sofa.
The leader spoke into his microphone to a government official: "Julia Liebermann has been terminated. Harris Liebermann is nowhere to be found. We still have three others to kill, along with the unknown fourth. Positions are unknown. Doctor Liebermann must have had help with hiding the others. Who it is helping him is still unknown."
The female voice on the other line responded, "Very well. You have forty-eight hours to get the job done before Humpty Dumpty takes a great fall. Until then, your mission is completed. I will send out warnings to certain Spectres to keep a watchful eye on this situation." The female voice was as cold as the vacuum of space. "Brown Recluse, can you respond?"
"Yes ma'am?"
"Kill the Black Widow."
To the leader's surprise, he felt the icy lips of a pistol kiss the back of his neck followed by a tongue of flame that ripped into his lower skull. He coughed a fountain of blood and slumped foreword.
"Is he dead?" asked the government official.
"Roger that."
"He was too dangerous. Did he say he could dream?"
"Yes, he did and ma'am, it is not a 'he'."