WORTHY

Being chosen wasn’t a reward.

Priya would learn that soon enough.

Priya marched through the city, her breath rising in clouds before her face. She tightened her scarf and fastened another button on her coat as the wind picked up. It billowed through her midnight-black tresses and chilled her face. Passersby thronged the streets. Snow was piled high on the sidewalks, shimmering in the pale sunlight. Somewhere in the distance, a horn blared, and the air reeked of car exhaust.

A carrying case bounced against her hip, the cans of spray paint rattling beside each other. Her shoulder ached beneath the strap, but Priya pushed forward anyway. A hotel manager had commissioned her to create a mural on the building façade. He’d seen her work on Instagram, and could not help but reach out. The cyberpunk vibe in her pieces paired well with the hotel’s outer space theme. Moreover, he gushed over her instincts for composition, proportions, and color schemes. Her cheeks flushed at his praise, and how could she refuse an adoring fan? Especially when the payout could take care of her sky-high rent—the next four months of rent, actually.

Priya weaved through the crowd beneath a scaffold pushed up against a row of bright storefronts. Above, footsteps pounded on wooden boards, and construction workers barked at one another. The frigid air stirred as the never-ending stream of cars churned between bustling city blocks. She approached a crosswalk and stopped at the corner. Across the street and to her right, was an enormous plaza with a fountain at the center. Jets of water reached for the sky above the rippling basin. Benches interspersed with verdant planters in-between them surrounded it. Priya started crossing, then froze mid-stride, her head snapping to the right, brow creasing.

The air above the fountain shimmered. A myriad of ripples spread outward distorting the adjacent buildings. People streamed past her. Others halted. A woman did a double-take, her silky mane fluttering around her head. A pinprick of golden light ignited like a star in their midst. An elderly man thrust a gnarled, bony finger at the plaza. Phones emerged. Onlookers murmured to one another.

A bright flare exploded in the city. Priya whipped her head away, clamping her eyes shut. She threw a hand up to shield her face. Cries rang out everywhere. Tires screeched against asphalt. Metal and glass crunched.

“What the hell is that?” someone on her right exclaimed.

When Priya looked, she found an object—a silver diamond vertically stretched out—hovering right above the fountain. It spun around silently, its surface emblazoned with mysterious calligraphy. They resembled Egyptian hieroglyphics but with the curvilinear strokes of hiragana and al-abjadiyah. A golden light pulsed from the mysterious script. Her brow crinkled. She could not make sense of how any of the vertices met up—and were the facets of the object even flat? Convex? Concave? Goosebumps crawled along her skin.

Another wave of golden light burst from the object amid a chorus of shouting. Warmth and light enveloped Priya and tremors rattled her body. Flashes of her life from early childhood to adulthood flickered through her mind. All of her accomplishments and failures, her hopes, dreams, and fears compressed into a reel of milliseconds. A gentle heat gathered on her forehead, intensified, then faded.

With another bright flash, the object vanished.

#

“What just happened?”

“Where did that thing go?”

“Somebody, call 911!”

Voices swirled all around Priya, and her mind echoed the same questions and more. Where did it come from? Why couldn’t she understand its form? She’d devoted her whole life to seeing and understanding, but this thing defied all explanation. It possessed script she could not read and geometry she could not grasp. In her mind, she turned the object around and around, but try as she might, she could not decide whether its sides were flat or not. How many sides did it even have?

People darted to and fro shouting at one another. Traffic on the street had come to a halt. Two cars had collided with one another in the center of the intersection. The front end of a sedan was crunched like an accordion, smoke rising from the hood. An enormous dent cratered the passenger-side of a taxi. Glass shards were strewn across the asphalt. Airbags were swollen like tumors. Further down the street, three other vehicles were crammed together fender-to-fender.

With trembling fingers, Priya dug her phone out of her purse and dialed 911.

After one ring, an operator answered. “911, what’s your emergency?”

Words tumbled out of her lips. “There are multiple car accidents here, and oh, dear God, the intersection is blocked and th-this thing appeared, and there was a bright flash of light, and—”

“Okay. Okay, miss. Where are you?” the operator interjected.

“I’m-I’m at the corner of 25th and 9th street.”

“How many vehicles are involved?”

“Three—no—five,” she answered.

“All right. We’ll send someone right away, miss.”

Priya let out a quavering breath. “Thank you.”

In moments, sirens blared in the distance. The shrill, whining sound grew louder with every heartbeat. Slowly, cars pulled over to the shoulder as three ambulances burrowed through the standstill. Doors flew open. Paramedics bolted for the crushed vehicles, barking orders at one another.

Priya watched as they went to work carefully extracting the drivers and passengers. Stretchers were rolled out. They felt for pulses, crouched over and listened for breathing. Blue and red sirens flashed in the distance. Everywhere, miniature images of the object played out on a million tiny screens. It gazed at Priya, its sentience piercing deep into her soul.

Her phone chimed, and she flinched.

When she answered the call, the screen lit up with Andrew Marsden’s, the hotel manager’s face. A dense beard sprouted from his chin, and his irises were a grayish blue. Wrinkles creased his flesh, and his nose was thin and narrow. He wore a tweed jacket over a button-down shirt.

“Everything okay, Priya? I noticed you’re running a bit late,” he said.

“No-no. It’s—it’s all chaos here,” she stammered.

She panned her phone across the scene, and the manager exclaimed, “Oh, my God! What happened?”

The words tumbled from her lips before she could stop them. “Th-this object just appeared out of nowhere, and I-I couldn’t make any sense of it. Cars smashed into each other, and—and paramedics are scrambling back and forth, and oh, God, one of the drivers was covered in blood.”

“Are you okay?” Marsden asked.

“I-I’m rattled, but otherwise, I’m fine,” she said, her mouth going dry.

“If you don’t feel up to this today, that’s fine. You can start tomorrow or this weekend,” he said.

Her insides unclenched in a burst of warmth. “Thank you, Mr. Marsden, but I—”

A gust of wind blew locks of hair away from her brow, and the manager asked, “What’s that mark on your forehead?”

Priya looked down at her own face in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, and a shiver ran up her spine. A chill that had nothing to do with the New York winter consumed her. Emblazoned on Priya’s forehead was a mark that resembled a letter ‘V’ chopped in half. The two arms tapered outward in a gentle curve, and wedged in-between, was an upside-down triangle with a row of teeth lining the base. The embossed edges were smooth to the touch as if this thing had been slipped underneath her skin.

“I—I don’t know,” she stammered.

#

Priya ducked into a nearby alley and placed her carrying case on the ground. Dumpsters and overflowing trash cans were shoved up against the crumbling walls. Garbage was scattered across the snow and ice. A rancid smell wafted past Priya’s nose. She rummaged in her purse until she found a tube of concealer and a small, hand-held mirror. She propped it on top of a trash can and crouched before her reflection. A thin wrinkle had developed between her eyebrows. The corners of her thin lips were drawn down, and the scarf obscured her graceful throat. With a trembling hand, she dabbed the dark brown powder on her forehead until the mark vanished. For a moment, she admired the elegant, tapering arms, the symmetry of the wedge. But what did it mean? How did it get there? Her insides squirmed, and her blood chilled. As much as she could help it, nobody else would ask her about it.

In a flash, Priya put away her makeup then heaved the carrying case back onto her shoulder. For a moment, she lingered on the street, her gaze flickering side to side. Was there anyone else who needed her help? The paramedics loaded the injured into the ambulances. Onlookers huddled together and spoke to police officers. Lone New Yorkers stared at their phones watching the object appear and vanish over and over. Priya turned and left the scene.

The Constellation loomed over her, its spotless, floor to ceiling windows gleaming in the pale sunlight. Behind her, a car engine hummed as it rolled through the valet on her left. Guests trickled in and out of the revolving door. On her way to the hotel, she’d seen two others who’d been marked. One of them she recognized as an Olympic judoka medalist. Paula’s hair was pulled back in a bun, and freckles bombarded her cheeks. She wore a hoodie and baggy sweatpants. Whether or not she knew she was marked, Priya didn’t know. She passed by without a word.

The next was a man in a gray trench coat with a leather valise draped on his shoulder. Glasses were perched on his nose, and a silver beard covered his chin. He strode along at a fast clip dodging passersby and puddles of slush. Priya didn’t know him, but he looked like the competent, professional type—an entrepreneur or an analyst of some kind. What on earth did she have in common with those two people? The question hovered in her mind unanswered.

Priya stood before the wall now, a spray can clutched in her hand. The metal chilled her fingertips, and the rounded edge of the nozzle pressed into her skin. Her carrying case sat on the sidewalk open to the gray sky. In her mind, she could already see the chain of planets wreathed in asteroids. To her far left, she’d paint their twin parent stars locked in a slow-motion dance among the myriad stars.

She took a step toward the wall when a gentle heat radiated from her forehead, and a vision seized her mind. In a flash, the curvature of the Earth appeared far below her. The inky blackness of space stretched on forever in all directions. She was enveloped in light as she was drawn inexorably toward an immense, helix-shaped vessel. Its undulating contours shifted; twitched then glided past one another. Priya’s limbs flew back, her hair fluttering over her shoulders. The vessel was coated in chrome, its underbelly lacquered in the blue of Earth’s oceans. All around her, people sailed by, some of them crying out. People of all ages and ethnicities were swept along in the celestial current.

A frigid gale blasted Priya in the face, and she gasped. Car horns blared in the distance. Warm aromas from a nearby pizza shop drifted past her nose. What was that? She took a deep breath and touched the hidden mark on her forehead. What was the composition she’d prepared again? She groped for the original concept, but came up with nothing. Never mind. She had a better idea now.

By the end of her first session, a blue crescent emerged in the dark void of space. Clouds churned above the oceans and continents. Above the earth hovered a metallic helix, and a pinprick of light burned like a star at its center. The vision flickered in her mind again, and she shivered. It had come from her mark, she was sure. But how? It had to be more than a mark if it was capable of that. Something that could manipulate her creative process. Priya’s insides twisted into a cold knot.

Was she still an artist or someone’s puppet?

#

The next morning, Priya woke up with an urge to get up and go somewhere. Where exactly, she had no idea. But she had to leave now. She swallowed hard as a pulsing warmth radiated from the mark on her forehead. Throughout her breakfast and shower, she tried to ignore it, but the inexplicable urge would not go away.

After Priya brushed her teeth, she threw on a coat and scarf. She rummaged in her closet until she found an old beanie hat. Before the mirror, she pulled it low over the mark, then delved into the cold, windy city. Out on the street, she walked by pure instinct. This turn felt right—no, not here, go there. Even as Priya walked, she imagined strings pulling at her arms and legs.

Eventually, she found herself before an apartment building, its elegant brick façade crusted with snow. High above were small, private balconies with stone banisters, and dense evergreen trees wreathed about the ground floor. She pushed through the revolving door and into a cozy lobby. Her boots quietly echoed across the marble floor. To her right, leather couches were arranged around a fireplace, and to her left was an empty reception desk. On the far wall was a flat-screen television where a video clip of the object played on a loop. A few residents stared at the monitor and murmured in low voices.

Priya turned into a short corridor which led to the elevators. She pressed the ‘up’ button, and the doors quietly slid open. Like a magnet, her finger was drawn to the button for floor fifteen. The number glowed above her head, and a small jolt penetrated her boots. At the top, Priya turned left, but a chill seized her middle. She spun around and went the other way, the warmth guiding her every step.

In moments, she found herself at the door to apartment fifteen zero nine—where four other people waited for her. Among them, were Paula Drake, the judoka and the middle-aged professional from the street. Next to him, was Jarrell Olabanji, a young entrepreneur in a black trench coat and scarf. His dark hair was trimmed in a buzz cut, his complexion a shade of ebony. Beside him was another man Priya didn’t recognize. A thin layer of fuzz covered his chin, and his wide nose was hooked like a beak. He wore a puffy winter coat which had seen better days and a sweater over a button-down shirt. All of them were marked.

Paula wrung her hands and looked at her, eyes widening. “You too?”

In answer, Priya took off her beanie revealing the mark on her forehead. “I—I don’t really know what I’m doing here. I just—”

“Felt like you had to come,” Jarrell finished for her.

Priya swallowed and nodded. “Yeah.”

The door opened, and before them stood a woman whose complexion was as pale as snow. Auburn tresses laced with silver fell to her ears. Wrinkles lined her cheeks, and upon her brow was a mark identical to theirs. A turtleneck sweater clung to her frame, and slippers covered her feet. She regarded them with an icy stare.

“Good morning. I have been expecting you. Please come in,” she said.

Books lined the walls in haphazard towers and buried the coffee table in the living room. The mantel above the fireplace was crowded with multi-lingual dictionaries, their spines tilted or lying sideways. Persian rugs adorned the floor. The smell of chai lingered in the air. Nestled in the corner was a flat-screen television with a news broadcast about the object. Priya shivered.

“I had a dream last night that I was hosting a dinner party. With you all as my guests,” the woman said.

The man with the thin beard chuckled. “Dreaming about strangers and then meeting them the very next day. That’s not weird at all.”

“Did your mark feel warm when you woke up?” Priya asked.

The woman turned back around and nodded. “Why, yes. It did.”

Jarrell pulled his hands out of his pockets. “So, what the hell is going on here?”

A smile that did not reach the woman’s eyes flickered across her face. “In all honesty, I am just as lost as the rest of you.”

The silver-bearded man cleared his throat. “Well, the object clearly marked us for a reason. Perhaps it would help if we shared a little bit about ourselves.”

Paula nodded grimly. “Makes sense.”

“Perfect. Everyone, please sit,” the woman said gesturing to the coaches.

By the time everyone was done sharing, Priya learned that their hostess was Sophie Lancaster, a translator for the U.N. and master of two hundred twelve languages. The middle-aged professional was Dr. Scott Jensen, who had just initiated a program involving the bio-facture of functional human organs. The man in the worn-out coat was Dr. Stephen Pryor who had recently designed a sustainable cold fusion power cell. Tests for the first proto-type were ongoing.

Priya felt silly in this gathering now. What had she ever done in life that could measure up to their achievements? In school, she excelled in art, graphic design, and writing. But anything that involved numbers was anathema to her. She struggled in physics and chemistry. Memories of her low marks in those areas made her cringe.

Priya recognized Jarrell from the most recent cover of Forbes magazine. He was a teenage entrepreneur who made a fortune starting his own men’s clothing brand. For his designs he drew inspiration from his African heritage. Priya knew Paula Drake from watching her matches on YouTube. She was a legend for hurling heavier, stronger opponents to the floor in a thunderclap.

While everyone introduced themselves, Sophie’s wife, Gabriela, emerged from the kitchen and served everyone chai. Despite her graying mane of hair, her copper skin was remarkably smooth. A light sweater clung to her torso, and she wore a pair of shaggy slippers. Gabriela was a yoga instructor who loved to paint in her free time. She was unmarked. Priya’s insides contorted into a knot. What would that mean for her?

Jarrell pointed to his forehead. “Now, what the hell is this?”

Sophie finished her tea and placed it on top of a stack of books. “I believe it is a pictogram which could mean ‘reward’ or ‘victory’ or perhaps ‘worthy.’ The two diagonal strokes resemble hands, and the triangle in the middle could symbolize . . . a trophy of some kind?”

Dr. Pryor rubbed his chin. “Seems plausible to me. Since we all excel at something.”

“But how do we know it’s really hands?” Paula asked. “To the aliens it could be tentacles or fins. And maybe the triangle is, I don’t know, a weapon or something?”

Sophie nodded evenly. “I very well could be wrong, but that is my best guess.”

Priya wetted her lips. “How do we know it’s aliens?”

Every gaze landed on her.

“If aliens are behind this, why would their script look even somewhat familiar to us? It would look entirely foreign, wouldn’t it?” she continued.

Sophie’s eyebrows lifted. “The artist has a point.”

Dr. Pryor shook his head. “Nah. This machine is way beyond anything us humans could ever make. There were no thrusters on this thing. It was just floating there. Like it had some way of manipulating gravity.”

“And it just . . . appeared,” Jarrell said his palms facing one another.

“Yeah. Whatever this thing is, it can shift in and out of reality,” Dr. Pryor said.

A corner of Dr. Jensen’s mouth lifted. “The physicist seems intrigued.”

“Hell, how could I not be?” Dr. Pryor shot back.

Paula frowned, her forehead creasing. “Why was it so confusing to look at?”

Priya’s ears twitched at the question.

Dr. Pryor held up a finger. “Because it’s not a three-dimensional object. It’s a four or maybe five- dimensional object.”

“Ya gotta be shittin’ me,” Jarrell said.

The doctor shook his head. “Nah.”

Paula bit her lower lip. “I feel like this thing brought us together somehow.”

Dr. Jensen looked at Sophie to his right. “I believe you insinuated that the mark gave you a dream about us?”

The polyglot nodded.

“Well, in that case, this is more than just a mark. It’s an implant that can somehow manipulate neural activity,” the doctor replied.

Goosebumps crawled along Priya’s skin. In her mind, the strings appeared again arcing up from her wrists, ankles, and torso. They went straight through the ceiling leading to whatever cosmic puppet master was running the show. He gazed down at them all, a smile creasing his lips. His wrist tilted as Priya lifted her hand to sip her tea.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Paula said leaping from the couch.

She strode to the window and crossed her arms.

“Which would entail an intimate understanding of the human brain,” the doctor said.

“So, aliens who’ve studied us,” Dr. Pryor said.

Dr. Jensen lifted a palm toward Priya. “Or . . . humans.”

“Or something else entirely for all we know,” Sophie added.

Gabriela turned toward Paula and smiled. “This is all conjecture, darling. Come back to the meeting.”

Paula took a deep breath and let it out shivering. “That doesn’t make this any less weird,” she said sitting back down.

“I understand,” Gabriela replied.

Should she tell them about her vision? But Paula was terrified already, and how would Sophie and her wife react knowing they could be ripped apart? It might shed light on their situation, though. Priya darted her gaze about the room gauging everyone’s facial expressions and body language. Could they handle what she was about to say?

“I think they’re going to take us away,” Priya said.

In a flash, Paula twisted in her seat and exclaimed, “WHAT?”

“When I was at The Constellation to work on a mural, the mark wiped out my original concept and gave me a vision,” she said trembling. “I was hurtling through space, far above the earth surrounded by thousands of the marked. We were enveloped in this river of light careening toward a giant star ship.”

Sophie and her wife gazed at one another, their brows crinkled.

“Any idea when this will happen?” Dr. Pryor asked.

“Where are they taking us, and why?” Paula pressed.

Sophie and Gabriela’s hands interlinked.

Priya swallowed hard, her mouth going dry. “I have no idea.”

Sidelong looks darted all around the room, and silence reigned.

#

The chemical odors of spray paint suffused the air as Priya detailed the very last figure in her mural. The myriad silhouettes were swept along in waves of golden light, their limbs splayed out in the void. Above them was the vessel gathering the multitude into its chrome confines. She stepped back from the mural and exhaled. Spray cans dotted the sidewalk next to their lids. Her carrying case sat open, the strap coiled around the base.

Passersby murmured appreciatively about her art. A few stopped and snapped a photo. Others even took a selfie with her. She did her best to smile for them—and to keep her mark hidden. Even though perspiration and heat gathered on her brow, Priya didn’t dare move the beanie.

Since her meeting with the marked, there were more sightings of the object all over the world. Millions had seen it in Beijing, Cairo, Sydney, Ho Chi Minh, Moscow, Buenos Aires, and Paris. Stories of life reviews flooded her television set. Photos of the marked appeared in every corner of the internet. News networks everywhere had all the same questions and nothing but speculation for answers.

Earlier that morning, Dr. Pryor texted everyone else. Get this. The Beijing sighting happened seconds after the one here.

Paula and Priya replied with an exploding head emoji.

That’s only significant if they saw the exact same one, Dr. Jensen said.

Instantly, the other doctor shot back with, Let’s just assume it is. Because that’s way more fun.

You have an odd definition of ‘fun,’ doctor, Sophie replied.

A ‘thumbs up’ emoji appeared next to her speech bubble.

#

Waves of purple grass rippled in the breeze, and the scent of cinnamon accented with lavender wafted into her nose. Far to the west rose shimmering towers, their facades glowing with iridescent hues. The twisted spires reached for the sky amid clusters of nautilus shells and multi-faceted domes. The north was a distant mountain range, its peaks crowned in fog. Above, two suns—a large yellow one and a small blue one—bathed the world in their mingled light. Standing in that field, Priya was consumed with an inexplicable feeling: this was home.

Her eyes fluttered open in the dark bedroom. Outside, street lamps burned like embers. Windows glowed. The low hum of a car engine grew and faded. Heat radiated from her brow. Just below her hairline, perspiration beaded. The mark pulsed with heat like a living thing. Electric thrills danced along her skin.

Why did this feel different? And what was that place she saw in her dream? It had to be another vision from the mark. But why now? She gasped and sat bolt upright.

Oh my God. It’s happening. Tonight.

She swallowed hard, and a cold weight sank in her middle. But how could she just leave? Her whole life was here. Despite her misgivings, something told Priya she didn’t have a choice. This isn’t fair. Who do they think they are just tearing us away from Earth like this?

Threads of light exploded across the sky.

Priya gasped. Kicking the blanket aside, she scrambled to the window mouth agape. Like a luminous web, it stretched from one horizon to another. The light pulsed and shimmered reflecting off the nearby buildings. In her mind, the dream was still crystal clear, and one word echoed across her thoughts: home.

A ball of light grew larger and larger in Priya’s perspective, dimming the street lamps by contrast. She squinted her eyes and raised a hand to shield her face. Heat cascaded from her mark. The air around her rippled. A golden haze ensconced her body. The sun’s glare burst into her room, burning through her eyelids. Priya’s torso was yanked forward, her limbs and head snapping back. The sound of shattered glass and crumbling bricks filled her ears, and she screamed.

When she opened her eyes, Manhattan flew by, the horizon plummeting. Priya’s heart hammered. Her skin crawled. She panted looking down at her arms and body—no scratches, no bruises, nothing. She looked back at her apartment and found a gaping breach in the brick façade.

The city shrank beneath her feet. The Atlantic expanded and tapered along the curvature of the Earth. In the distance, a myriad of other golden ribbons cut through the void. Tiny silhouettes of the marked ascended with her, the multitude swept along in rivers of light. They all converged on the chrome vessel hovering right above the planet. The twisted helix blotted out the inky darkness of space, writhing as if alive.

Priya was enveloped in radiance. As if a star had swallowed her whole, her retinas burned. She feared she’d be blinded. Her feet touched a smooth floor. Arms brushed against her. Murmuring in hundreds of languages filled her ears. When Priya looked around, she found herself surrounded by thousands of people of all nations, ages, and professions.

They were gathered in an immense chamber shaped like an oval. Before them, was a machine of some kind; a pedestal with an orb levitating above it. Concentric rings encased the metallic orb, spinning and tilting as golden lightning bolts writhed all over its form. Behind them was an enormous viewing port shaped like an ellipse. Its edges glowed with a soft blue that dissipated into nothing. Earth hovered in the void, indifferent to their departure.

All around the chamber were arched doorways, each one marked with a line of pictograms similar to those on the object. On the far left and right sides were curving staircases which led up to a gallery. The chrome railing shimmered with banisters that extruded like stalactites. Above them stood a small delegation. At the forefront were five people whose robes gleamed in shades of gold, amber, and bronze. Their high collars flared out in tongues of flame and intricate lace patterns adorned their sleeve cuffs. Their complexions varied from pale white to caramel brown, and their faces possessed an ageless look.

Behind them was a line of ten people in pearl white robes. Silver sashes were draped across their torsos, and chrome bracelets gleamed on their wrists. Their facial features were smooth and ageless like the people in front. In unison, they lifted instruments that resembled clarinets but with three horns branching out from the main shaft. They were carved of a grayish-brown wood Priya could not name, and the buttons were encrusted with magenta stones she’d never seen before. Their cheeks puffed out, and a majestic melody filled the air followed by a chain of staccato notes. What key it was, Priya could not even guess. The riff concluded with a high-pitched trill, and a man at the front and center lifted his outspread arms.

“Welcome, all ye Worthy! Through science, technology, philanthropy, art, music, or literature, you have all proven yourselves exceptional among your peers. For that, you deserve the highest praise. Your prehistoric ancestors, stripped of all memory of our race spawned civilizations that rose and fell across the ages. From the ashes of ignorance, you ascended. You honed your minds and your crafts to the uttermost attaining the title of ‘Worthy.’ Now here is your reward; a journey to Dohjae, humanity’s true home; a brand new start for you among your equals. I am Sanjar, and these are my colleagues, and once again, welcome,” he proclaimed.

Sanjar’s bald pate glistened with perspiration, and his lips were full beneath a wide nose. Muscles bulged against the inside of his sparkling robe, and he was easily a foot taller than Priya. As he spoke, the movements of his lips didn’t match the words that she heard. It was like watching a movie dubbed with voice-overs. Although his speech was in English, if she listened closely enough, she picked up snippets right before each statement. To her it almost sounded like Latin, but spoken with a French accent.

Sanjar held up a finger. “But your reward also comes with a duty. The onus is now on you to select the next generation of Worthy ones to ensure the continuation of our kind.”

“This is bullshit! Why do we have to serve you?” someone yelled at the forefront of the crowd.

Murmurs of assent rippled everywhere.

The Latin-French translation echoed as a backdrop to the loud chorus.

‘Yeah! You never asked us if we wanted to leave. You just took us,” a woman cried from the back.

More grumbling stirred among the marked.

Sanjar and his colleagues betrayed no emotion. They’d faced protests like this before—which meant they had arguments prepared and likely countermeasures if things got out of hand. Priya swallowed hard. How far would they be willing to go to keep them here? How far would the Worthy go to break free if it was even possible?

“You can’t do this to us! You’re ripping families apart,” Sophie cried from somewhere ahead of Priya.

“Yeah. Send us back,” a man on her far right bellowed.

The last three words echoed in a loop, a chorus that spread like wildfire. “Send us back! Send us back! Send us back!”

One word exploded from Sanjar’s lips. “Silence!”

Instantly, the chanting died.

“I can do no such thing. In fact, we are already millions of light years from Earth,” he said gesturing to the viewing port.

The crowd turned around and gasped. Earth was gone—replaced by a chain of three moons no one recognized. A silver, cratered satellite led the way with two smaller brown ones trailing off into the distance. Stray comets tumbled perpetually through the void. A pinprick of red light glimmered far away.

“We made the trans-dimensional jump seconds ago,” Sanjar added. “I cannot send you back because, in truth, we need you. Over the millenia, we crafted the perfect society. We edited disease out of our genome. We eliminated poverty, wars, discrimination. Political corruption and environmental degradation are footnotes in our history. We prolonged our lifespan from a handful of decades to centuries. But with advancement came stagnation.”

Sidelong looks darted everywhere.

“We made ourselves too perfect. We’ve drifted from harmonious to sterile. We have no new ideas because we don’t have to innovate anymore. But you,” he said thrusting a finger at them. “Your minds have been sharpened by constraints and pressures we no longer have. You can renew us!”

Snippets of conversation rippled throughout the chamber.

“Fuck you! Why should we care?” someone bellowed at the forefront. “Our whole lives are on Earth. Send us back!”

A chorus of shouting burst from the crowd, and people surged up both staircases. Thundering footsteps assaulted Priya’s ears as the assembly thinned out. Her pulse accelerated. Perspiration chilled her palms. She looked around for a place to hide, but walls of bodies still hemmed her in.

Lightning burst from the machine, and Priya shrieked. She threw her arms over her head and instinctively dropped into a crouch. People collapsed on the steps tumbling like dominoes. The smell of burnt fabric suffused the air. She stared at the fallen, eyes and mouth agape.

“That machine has a lethal setting we would prefer not to use,” one of Sanjar’s colleagues announced.

A headdress resembling antlers rested upon her head, and her platinum blond hair was combed into a silky mane. Her complexion was pale, her throat swan-like. The bronze-colored dress clung to her figure and a simple sash was wrapped about her waist. She spoke with a tired authority, like one who had given the same warning countless times before. Whatever this was, they’d been at it for a long time.

“All right, everybody chill,” Jarrell said his hands outstretched. A cluster of people surrounded him who turned to look his way. “We might have the numbers, but we are severely out-gunned. And I don’t know about ya’ll, but I really don’t wanna die.”

Murmurs of assent spilled through the room.

“The kid’s got a point.”

“Yeah. I ain’t dyin.’”

The faces of all of Priya’s family members and friends flickered through her mind. She remembered the apple-cinnamon scent of her studio apartment and the sounds of the city. In her mind, she heard the roar of an ocean she would never again see or touch. Earth was just a memory now. But that was a sacrifice she would have to bear.

Priya rose to her full height, her heart still racing. “You’re right. This isn’t fair. We can’t fight the system, and we can’t burn it down. But we can change it. We are the new judges. We decide who is Worthy. We’ll include as many as we can. Anyone who’s achieved even the smallest personal accomplishment. That way, just maybe, we can save a few families in their entirety.”

Silence fell. A few people nodded. Teary-eyed gazes dotted the room. Someone sniffled on the fringe of the crowd. A single tear trickled down Sophie’s cheek.

“We demand excellence and nothing less,” Sanjar said.

Priya looked up at him. “It’s that or nothing.”

Sanjar and his colleagues whispered fiercely at one another. The pale-skinned woman sliced a hand through the air, a fiery rebuttal spilling from her lips. Snippets of their Latin-French floated into Priya’s ears, but she understood none of it. Whatever mechanism translated their words before was sensitive to vocal inflection and decibel levels. Slowly, their argument faded, and Sanjar looked down at her. The pale-skinned woman frowned and crossed her arms.

For a moment that stretched for an eternity, no one spoke. Sanjar’s colleagues exchanged looks. Bolts of energy crackled on the machine. None of the fallen moved. Priya’s heart punched against her sternum.

“So be it,” Sanjar said.

#

Priya and the other marked stood before the object in a cavernous chamber. It hovered above the stone floor, its many facets folding and unfolding before her eyes. The pristine monolith loomed over them silent and patient. The lines of pictograms burned like stars. All around the chamber were stone columns which arched into a dome. They intersected with one another in a swirling lattice, and in-between were diamonds of light.

Arranged about the object in concentric circles were metallic chairs with hoods attached to the seatbacks. They faced away from the object, planted on the floor with one leg, their sleek forms shimmering in the sun. The seatbacks angled backward flowing down into a pair of armrests, and the footrests below them tapered off into an elegant curve. The floor was pink with streaks of white and violet. Iridescent hues danced along the glass panes.

Priya and the others had been on Dohjae for weeks now. They were each given translator devices disguised as silver necklaces. They were settled in a lavish neighborhood and awarded a basic income of one hundred thousand credits per month. The Worthy were free to go anywhere any time—but not off-world. None of the star-ports would accept them as passengers, which left just a few illicit channels to get away. Some tried. All of them were caught and never seen again. Dohjae was their new home; their glorious prison.

She missed her apartment, her emerging career. She missed her friends and family; her brother, Nilraj, most of all. She would give anything just to hear one of his corny jokes again. The memory of coming home to her mother’s embrace filled her mind coupled with the smells of coriander and cumin. From now on, her chair at the dinner table would sit empty. Tears dampened her cheeks almost every morning. They would never know what became of her, and she would never see them again.

Now, here they were about to do the same thing to another generation of people. Would they ever forgive them? Priya hoped so. Needles pricked her heart as she imagined the moral outrage playing out again on that star ship. The newcomers on Dohjae who would wake up yearning for their loved ones. But what choice did they really have? Even if all the marked rebelled, the Dohjaeri would kill them, then go back to Earth and find a more willing group. Priya’s compromise wasn’t ideal, but it was more compassionate, at least.

The object was destined for Kannava, one of millions of worlds, the Dohjaeri seeded with human life. From a base of twenty-five hundred breeding pairs the Kannavans sprang. Five thousand unfortunate souls whose memory had been wiped in the trans-dimensional jump. Without clothes, tools, or weapons of any kind, they awoke on a warm, wet world. They, like a multitude of others started from absolute zero. After centuries of growth, warfare, collapse, and recovery, it was time for the harvest.

Priya and the other marked dispersed among the chairs. She climbed into the nearest one, but her head didn’t even reach the headrest, and the armrests were above her elbows. Instantly, the chair shrank conforming to her body. Her eyebrows jumped. That was different.

A dome-like hood dropped over her eyes, and suddenly, a view of the entire chamber expanded in her mind. From overhead, she observed all the marked as they took their seats. After a few moments, when all was still, a vague notion of acknowledgement rippled across her awareness. Then, the chamber vanished, replaced by a view of a crowded plaza. At the center, clusters of crystals gleamed in the moonlight, and fountains gushed all around them. Buildings with angled roofs were densely packed together, and wide avenues stretched in every direction. Kannava.

People froze in their tracks. A hush fell over the plaza. In the distance, a little girl pointed at the object. Every gaze landed on it, on Priya. Waves of light cascaded through the plaza amid tangled cries. Like mist, the scene evaporated and moments linked together like webs unfolded in her mind. Every web was a life. Some connected at a single point. Others overlapped. Still others were far removed. The sea of memories played out before her, ran through her like a river’s tide.

In one life, she published a novel from a prison cell. In another, she ran into a barrage of gunfire to rescue an injured comrade. In another, she served dinner to the homeless. In another, she feverishly scrawled equations on a napkin, figuring out faster than light space travel. Hot tears spilled down Priya’s cheeks, and her breath quavered.

One word rose from her lips: “Worthy.”