A/N: Here we are. Finally, months and months after the first two chapters were posted, the third is brought into existence. I want to keep writing on this one, and have ideas for the Chap 4 that I’m eager to write. I hope you enjoy this latest installment of Xenosquad!

CHAPTER 3

Dante’s deep green eyes stared up into the darkness. He lay flat on his back in bed, his arms resting at his sides, his long blonde hair pooled on the pillow. Being home had given him a certain comforting satisfaction, one that should have eased him into a pleasant sleep… but nothing was simple anymore. In mere moments, the world had come crashing down around him, razed, destroyed, gone forever. Members of a secret organization moved in silence with deadly precision. Bits and pieces of evidence came to light that all was not well with the Alpha Omicron Confederacy. A man stood, unidentifiable in the midst of a thick fog, except for his blazing blue eyes—a man whose face appeared blurry, especially around the edges. All of this Dante had seen through eyes that were not his own. Flashes of images and sudden emotions, distorted voices and puzzling sounds, played like bits of tape snipped and clipped together in random order, with no regard to time.

In that one brief moment when he had been lost in his father’s eyes, he had seen visions swirling across his own, as though they were being projected onto his very eyeballs. Dante saw a mishmash of people… customers of his father’s, family friends, strangers in mass transit, the great senators that wielded power in the government. All appeared to be in order, but there was the distinct impression that each and every person was hiding something. All was not well. The visions shifted. It was nighttime. Human figures moved in the blackness, and as they neared, Dante could see that they were wearing dark uniforms, their faces hidden. The figure in front was wearing a similar but different uniform, obviously the leader. One of the men came closer and removed his mask. His face was hidden in shadow, but as he neared, his eyes glinted in the darkness. The green eyes, wide with both fear and determination, belonged to his father. It was then that Dante had awoken from the strange trance.

With no explanation from Asgar, Dante was left to wonder what had taken place. The exchange between him and his father reminded him suddenly of the stories he used to hear as a boy, about the Xenomarians. These were people who had purposefully cut themselves off from the rest of humanity when a genetic mutation had emerged…a mutation that gave the people inherent powers. A young girl named Laurie Mullins could manipulate water molecules. The man Trevor Dirk could transmute substances to any of the three states—solid, liquid, gas. Kylie Neville could move objects with her mind. What had passed between Asgar and Dante reminded Dante of psychic abilities, but The Leischens had always lived on Arlen. How could any of them possibly be Xenomarians?

According to myth, when those with the genetic mutation moved to their own planet, a term was coined to name both the new planet and its inhabitants. The planet was called Xenome, and its people Xenomarians. Xenome, a small change from genome, represented all of humanity. Those with the mutation were said to be genetically ruined—Xenomarians, or ‘those with marred genes.’ Was his own father one of those exiled to Xenome? If so, why and how had he left? These questions and many more swirled in Dante’s mind as he lay thinking.

Dante didn’t even feel tired. He had slipped under the covers knowing that he would not sleep; in fact, these days, it was becoming almost unusual for him to sleep. Aside from the current object of worry—his experience with Asgar--the robotics engineer simply felt empty. Nothing seemed to please him anymore. The things that he normally liked to do, such as working on the robots, tinkering with a new idea, writing a new poem, or having a night on the town, simply weren’t satisfactory. He felt as though something were missing—that he had many reasons to be happy, but an element that brought satisfaction from them was somehow missing. Dante didn’t know why, but he had felt that coming home might help, so he had filed for short-term leave from Aeliron Cybernetics and traveled from city-covered Rune to balanced, peaceful Arlen. Unfortunately, it seemed as though simply being there wasn’t enough to ease his feelings of emptiness.

A faint flicker of light outside caught his attention. The special glass of the apartment spheres automatically darkened whenever someone got into the beds of each particular room to block out the light of the morning, but something was happening outside. Whatever it was was bright enough to show through the darkened glass. Dante sat up, then turned to face the window and remained perfectly still. His breathing slowed; his pulse quickened.

Another flash. Without a word he reached over to the control panel on the wall, punched a series of buttons, and the darkened, curved glass wall became transparent again. He could see lines of air traffic, their red and white lights winking in and out as the crazy cab drivers passed one another. Soft lights down below traced the sidewalks, showing the trees swaying in a gentle, building wind. The lake, situated behind a series of upright caterpillar apartments like Dante’s, shivered in anticipation of the coming storm. Areas of its surface were enlivened by the stiff wind; bathed under the moonlight, the water resembled frosted glass. The rest of the surface, mysteriously untouched, reflected the surrounding landscape like a polished mirror.

A streak of white lightning shot across the starless sky, branching off into smaller bolts until they faded into the night. Dante relaxed. A thunderstorm… good. It had been ages since Dante had seen a good Arlen thunderstorm. But something felt wrong. Oh… he thought. There’s no thunder. Heat lightning. The storm was somewhere off in the distance. With a twinge of nostalgia, he hoped dearly that it would wander closer. There was something about the violent, raging light and sound, the merciless pounding of rain, that invigorated and relaxed Dante at the same time. To him thunderstorms were mysterious phenomenon, not only because of the mixed feelings they brought to life, but because they had remained one of few things that scientists still couldn’t fully explain.

He dimmed the glass slightly, dark enough to block out the distant traffic lights, yet light enough so that he could see the approaching storm. Without bothering to smooth his hair out, he lay his head on the pillow. Sighing uneasily, he closed his eyes. Every few moments, his eyelids would ignite with a silent fire as the lightning flashed outside.

Dante’s thoughts drifted through his childhood, through his schooling, to the job that he had loved from day one. He drifted back to the visions he had seen in his father’s eyes, and to the men moving silently in the dark. He shivered at the thought that it was dark outside now as it had been in the vision. Outside, black thunderheads rumbled, and the gentle breeze gained an eerie, wavering strength. Slowly, his alertness faded, lulled by the low thunder and the calm before the storm. The last faint tendril of thought to brush his consciousness as he slipped into sleep was a lingering feeling of unease. Something’s missing, something’s wrong… something…