A Future Forsaken
By Emily Jennings
Max left in Departure with Isabel & Tess, who didn't kill Alex. 20 years later & the world has changed. Antar & Earth have formed an alliance & 'aliens' are a thing of faerie tales. Can Max & Liz truly forsake their love now that the ultimate boundary has been diminished?
Author's note: Hay guys, I guess I should continue sine you've all been super nice with your reviews and stuff! Well, this is the forth chapter which means that this will end up being the longest shot fic ever!
Remember that this chapter is merely a flashback of what has already occurred!
Once again, thanks for all of your support and I hope you enjoy. x
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Max glanced at the markings blankly and finally asked, 'So what am I looking at?' It looked like Antarian, but like nothing that he understood. He remembered feeling this same sense of frustration over twenty years ago when he had first seen the destiny book.
Serena's gaze flickered to her King and then back to the engravings, 'You don't recognize it?'
Max shook his head no.
'It's old Antarian'
Max nodded. Just like the destiny book. He paused, frowning. 'Hang on a moment ... The this message is from before. If I wrote it and it's old Antarian then it must be.'
'No. No, you see that's why it's so ...' she floundered for the correct word, 'odd.'
He frowned again, 'I don't' understand, explain it to me. How do you know it's from me? How can it be from me?'
Serena was giving a series of short nods, 'Okay, I will, just ... bear with me, it's complex.'
Her manner turned immediately brisk and Max knew she was preparing herself, her mind turning to logic; science; the bare facts.
His mind immediately turned to a seventeen-year-old brunette girl, her head bent over a microscope, long hair partially obscuring her beautiful features, biting gently at her bottom lip in mute concentration. Liz, his mind breathed. In his mind she looked up and gave him one of her winning smiles, which captured his heart and spoke to his soul.
'Max?!'
His vision cleared and Serena was looking at him with a worried frown on her face.
'Are you okay?' she asked. 'You've been more distracted then usual recently.'
He nodded, 'Sorry, go on, this is important.'
She gave him a last searching look and, satisfied that she now had his full attention, turned her mind to the matter at hand.
'Well, like I said, it's old Antarian, but even I had trouble reading it. It's a corrupt version. It's messy and poorly done. It also had a lot of other total nonsense inserted randomly into it, which resembles nothing Antarian, old or new, that I've ever read, so I had to filter out a lot ... But now I think I've cracked it!'
She looked at him excitedly, awaiting his response.
'And?'
'Well I don't have much ...' she said, deflating noticeably. 'Well, hardly anything actually' she concluded, the frustration evident in her tone.
Max laid a consoling hand on her shoulder. 'Just tell me what you do have then.' When she didn't seem placated he continued, 'Serena, there's no one better than you at this kind of thing. You've done more than what anyone else could have done.'
Serena smiled and nodded, accepting his compliment gratefully. She turned back to the engraving, 'Well the first thing I got was the date.'
She glanced at him, 'Which isn't so unusual, everyone date their messages ... except, of course, the person who dated it isn't Antarian, or at least that's what I thought at first.'
Max's interest doubled, 'Not Antarian?!' He leaned over the engraving as if this new piece of information might suddenly enable him to decipher the unfamiliar symbols.
'No' Serena confirmed.
'How did you know?!'
'Well I didn't, I was mistaken wasn't I?' she reminded matter-of-factly.
Max flapped his hands in impatient dismissal, 'I mean, what made you think it wasn't written by an Antarian?'
'Because we track time via events'
'So ...?'
'Well like I said, if I was dating a message from nine years ago I would have dated it in the twelfth year of your return. This message was dated in the year '2014', in accordance with Earth's Christ.'
'2014?' he puzzled.
Serena nodded. 'Which lead me to the obvious conclusion that the message was of human origin.'
She paused at the obvious oxymoron. 'You can imagine my confusion. I didn't understand how it could be possible that a human had written and hidden a message within the granolith at that, or any other, time. It would be a feat for any Antarian to achieve!'
They both turned their heads to the centre of the circular room and surveyed the revered instrument, currently submerged in a light-blue, viscous, medicinal-like, protection fluid.
Serena was torn between her Antarian nature; which viewed, with a fascinated awe, the object that had brought her King home and restored hope and peace to her planet, and her scientific nature; which looked quizzically at the object, trying to guess it's nature and solve the mystery of how it came to exist in its current advanced form, given that they did not have, nor had ever, the technical knowledge to create such a powerful and complex instrument.
Max merely looked upon it with a bitter resentment, blame it for his life's miseries over the past twenty years.
He shook himself from his reverie and considered again the odd engraving.
Serena sighed and continued, 'I was confused. Really confused. And then I got an answer .... of sorts, but it just rose more complex questions.'
Max nodded, 'I can imagine. You found out the message was supposed to be from me.' he filled in.
'Yeah, but that was even more ... impossible. Nine years ago you had only just overthrown Kivar. The granolith wasn't even on this planet.'
'No' he confirmed, 'Larek had it, for safe keeping, it was too dangerous a weapon if Kivar got hold of it.' He paused, 'It could have been forger there, I guess' he continued doubtfully.
Serena shook her head in an immediate negative. 'You know Larek wouldn't let that happen. Only he knew where it was and no one else but him could get to it. Besides, even if they could they wouldn't have the human knowledge to date it in this manner.'
'Larek would have the knowledge, he's been around humans'
'But you know he wouldn't do such a thing! And it was so well concealed and embedded within the Granolith that he would have had to have not only precise technical knowledge but an intimate understanding of the granolith itself ... But even if he could somehow get past all that, even if he would do it, there is one thing which makes this message one hundred percent genuine --'
Max looked at her expectantly and motioned for her to go on.
'You Max! Your ...' she hesitated over the word '... your signature'
Ma looked at the ring on his hand. It was heavy platinum with a deep purple stone inset, which shimmered with an inner light. That light was him; his essence; the part of him that was more himself than any other part of him. A small amount had been extracted before it had been mixed with human DNA to complete the quartet of royal hybrids.
Since that day it had remained hidden and carefully guarded, awaiting his return. If Kivar had found it then it all would have been over. Kivar could have destroyed Max in a second.
The ring gave him what his life as a human had taken away; the memories of his past life.
He remembered that just before the Granolith had taken off of Earth Tess had received a flash of him kissing Liz when they had kissed. She had told him then that when they reached Antar he would forget all about Liz. Max knew that Tess had known about the ring and hope that it would make him forget Liz by restoring the memories of his former life, but it hadn't.
It had just confirmed what max had already known in his heart; that the truest thing he had ever done was love Liz. He had once had a kind of love with Tess – Ava – but in Liz he had found his soul mate, and the ring, the purest part of himself that he had, whispered it to him everyday.
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T.B.C.
... I admit it was a little crule to leave it there without telling you what the message was but hay, it gives you an incentive to review and tell me what you think! – Hehee. x