Legacy is everything—unless you're born to break it.

Prologue

Liam's luck couldn't be worse. After decades of research, he was finally on the precipice of breathing new energy into humanity's soul shortage. And yet here he was, running for his life from the most feared sight in the galaxy—a 40-week-pregnant woman.

He sprinted down one of his ship's few corridors doing his best to avoid the smoking piles of wreckage strewn across his path. The carnage was even worse than the floor of his living quarters, but with the distinct difference that his wife couldn't blame him for this mess.

A streak of red energy flew past his ear and struck the ceiling ahead of him, singeing his short, bushy black hair and sending a new hurdle crashing down into his path. He barely broke stride as he bounded over it, silently thanking the gym requirements at the University for teaching him the archaic hurdling technique.

"Be careful, you idiot!" a gravelly voice thundered from somewhere behind him. "We get paid double if we bring him back alive. These religious nuts take their rituals seriously."

To be fair, it wasn't exactly the nearly bursting pregnant woman waiting on the attacking ship who was the problem. It was the mercenaries she'd hired to kidnap him or—if necessary—murder him. And there weren't many places to run and even fewer to hide on the small scientific vessel.

Liam barreled through a doorway and into his laboratory as two more blasts merely blackened the bulkhead to either side. His pursuers had apparently come to their senses. With a stunned prey convulsing on the floor, the Transcendence priest could take her time with the ritual required to earn the group's bounty—Liam's immortal soul.

Liam whipped around and hit the panel by the side of the door, sending pocketed slabs of steel rushing together to provide a short respite. His equipment was sensitive and these doors had been designed to withstand much more than a blast from a handheld disrupter.

But that didn't mean he could waste any time.

"Alexa, how are our power levels looking?" he shouted while trying to catch his breath.

"They're not good!" a disembodied voice replied through the ship's intercom. "This thing barely has enough juice in it to pull off your experiment on a good day, and as you might have noticed already, that ain't today!"

Liam wiped the sweat from his brow up through his hair and took in the damage to his equipment caused by the punishment their ship had taken for the past 20 minutes.

The place was barely distinguishable from his quarters. Wrenches, screwdrivers, and plasma torches of various sizes littered every available surface. Duct tape and tin foil hung on for dear life while holding the wiring in place. The only real difference was that, instead of a bed, there was a large tomb-like cylinder lying in the middle of the room, which several spiraling cracks threatening the structure integrity of its windows.

Liam let out a sharp exhale and grinned. While the equipment was in shambles, it was in the shambles of a typical prototype. The room's reinforced walls and custom stabilizers had kept the shaking to a minimum.

This just might work. Unless, of course, the mercenaries' patron went into labor. They'd love to get Alexa alive and double their bounty for a future transaction, but they only needed one soul to fuel the imminent birth. They could destroy Liam's ship if it came that. Their ship should be able to stay close enough to make the ritual work, even if it wasn't performed under ideal circumstances. But they hadn’t yet reached that level of desperation, as a banging started ringing from the door like the deafening knock of Death himself. Liam's would-be captors were trying to figure out a way in.

There was still hope.

Liam scrambled to a control station bearing more of a resemblance to an ancient arcade game than a galaxy-renowned scientist's life's work and started setting up for an impromptu test. "The hydromodule will take at least two minutes to fill up and I'll need at least another three to get myself situated inside. Can we make it that long?"

"I don't know, Liam. All I can do is sit here and try not to think about what's about to happen," Alexa replied from the bridge. "I have no controls at all."

"Don't sweat it. I'm about to send you some." Liam pried the back of the control panel off and started disconnecting wires. He grabbed a tablet off of his lab bench and repeated the process. "I think I can connect my experiment's controls to a tablet and sync it up to the science station on the bridge." Furrowing this brow, he added, "That is, if there's still a science station up there."

"I'm not as familiar with this technology as you are. But I'm on it."

With the wiring in place, Liam's fingers danced through a series of commands that punched through the bridge's firewalls. While he hadn't hacked the security standards on a Transcendence ship since childhood, he was much better at computer programming than ancient track and field.

It also helped that the incessant banging had stopped.

"Any idea why the Animifrants stopped trying to get into my lab?" Liam hoped the answer would not come from an exploding door.

"Maybe they've decided it's worth it to just destroy us and take the financial hit? Or maybe their Huntress is having…"

Her reply was cut off as the leader of their pursing ship broke into their comm system. Liam finished rerouting the controls to the bridge, hoping that Alexa was still paying attention to the station's screens despite the intrusion into their conversation. With his end of the jerry-rigging complete, he propped himself up on the edge of the hydrochamber.

"Attention criminals, this is your salvation speaking," came a woman's voice over the ship's speakers. "You have put up a good fight, but I regret to inform you that this is the end of your sinning ways. Your wholesome reincarnations thank you for your sacrifice."

A chill ran down Liam’s back, and it wasn’t from the water now inching up his waste. The voice was lovely and calm. The voice of a mother consoling her children. The voice of a lover greeting her partner. The voice of a skilled huntress luring its prey out into the open.

"But do not be afraid," it cooed, "for we carry with us a vessel unblemished by worldly desires. And it will be your honor and privilege to help her carry out her sacred quest. We do not wish to make you suffer, we only wish to transform that which needs cleansing."

Alexa's response didn’t miss a beat. "Or you just want to ensure a double profit margin!"

“That’s my girl,” Liam chuckled to himself. He then finished with his headgear, swung his legs into the hydrochamber, and set his prototype in motion. Tapping the side of his neck, Liam enabled the ear-to-ear communications he had forced Alexa to install just in case of such an emergency.

"Why are they hesitating? A ship that nice has to have extra Surrogates on board just in case they stumble on unsuspecting victims or one of their crew gets injured," he said.

"I don't know," replied Alexa. "Maybe this group has an extra touch of the crazies and thinks taking us by our own free will is going to matter somehow."

"I can tell them for sure that it's not, but I doubt they're going to listen." Liam crunched his legs up into his body to try to squeeze his 77-inch frame into the 60-inch-long cylinder. Grabbing his oxygen mask, Liam wrapped the band around the back of his head and prepared to take his own leap of faith when a thought hit him. "You don't suppose that my…"

"Your what?" Alexa prompted.

But Liam didn't reply. Even if he was right, it didn't matter at this point. Preserving the essence of his work was all that did. "It's nothing. Are you ready?"

"Yes. But are you sure this is the right thing to do? Maybe we could talk some sense into them if they knew how close you've come? And we don't even know if this will work. Your calculations are inconclusive and your energy conversion models are incomplete.”

Liam wouldn't have detected the worry in Alexa’s voice if he hadn't spent the better part of the past eight decades by her side, but there it was. And she was probably right.

A pinpoint beam of light shot through the doors barricading his laboratory and inched its way down toward the floor. The Animifrants hadn't given up—they'd gone to get better equipment and were mere minutes from cutting a hole through the door.

He wasn't sure why they were going to such great lengths to take them alive. He had his suspicions but preferred death over their confirmation. In any case, he wasn't going to waste the opportunity it afforded, even if it was a literal shot in the dark.

"We have no choice," he said as he put his oxygen mask in place. He eased back into position and closed the hydrochamber door, cutting himself off from the outside world for the final time.

###

Alexa hunched over the half-ruined science station at the back of the bridge scanning the readings from their golden-goose experiment. She'd never so much as cracked a watery eye while on the bridge of a ship before, but her lower lip bore the promise of an end to that streak.

And it wasn't just the acrid smoke coming from the panels blown out of place in every corner. She hadn't had the heart to tell Liam, but their energy levels were worse than bad. She was struggling just to keep the lights on and his door locked.

"It doesn't have to be this way," their assailant's voice rang across the barely lit bridge once more. "Neither of you have to die."

Alexa's expression steeled at the bald-faced lie. "Oh, right. We don't have to die. We just get to become one with the Transcendence. Spare me your religious dogma."

"That is normally what I'd be preaching to lowly runaways with no options. But not today, Alexa."

A second, deeper voice joined in the soft call to reason, and Alexa's eyes widened slightly. "It's me, Alexa. You know the risk I'm taking by being here. But here I am anyway in the hopes that you'll believe my generous offer."

Alexa hated to admit it, but his presence was a powerful gesture. If the public discovered he'd been on a Transcendence ship, the blow-back to his political power would be severe.

"I will let you go free in one of our shuttles so long as you stop resisting and hand over Liam." When Alexa failed to respond, he added, "It's either that or become a donation to the Transcendence's sacrificial efforts. You do realize by now that I'm not going to destroy your ship and give you an easy way out?"

Alexa didn't buy what he was selling for a second. If they failed to get their hands on Liam, they'd torture her with their legendarily cruel methods of extraction. And since she was certain she could never finish Liam's work on her own, she preferred the thought of getting blown to pieces.

Actually, now that she thought about it, blowing up the ship might not be such a bad idea.

She dove under the main console and broke open what remained of its access doors. She guessed she had fewer than 60 seconds to complete the needed adjustments before the Animifrants broke into Liam's laboratory, but she had to try.

Alexa grabbed a handful of tools from a nearby maintenance kit. Picking out the screwdriver by touch alone, she tied her long black hair into a bun using the tool to hold it in place. It was a move she did without thinking—she'd done it so many times through the years it'd earned her the nickname "Screwdriver."

Racking her memories to University lessons from ages past, Alexa strained to remember the schematics for the power routers on the Transcendence vessel they'd recently "borrowed" to retrofit with Liam's designs. She took a deep breath to let her mind clear and then set to work with a steady hand.

Liam wasn't the only genius on board.

With a final makeshift solder in place, Alexa leaped back into the captain's chair and set the engines on overload. She wasn't sure if it was going to provide enough power before it blew, but it was the only chance Liam had left. She'd given up on having any of her own.

The ship shook as a whine came indistinctly from far away in the back of the ship. Their would-be captors must have noticed as well.

"What do you think you're doing?! Overloading your ship's engines could ruin everything! We need your cooperation to save the human species!" the voices roared in unison, no longer anywhere close to calm.

Alexa closed her eyes and thought to herself, “Humans aren't worth saving without our humanity.” Then she opened them, sneered at the ship on the view-screen, and delivered a different message with all the loathing she could muster.

"Bite me."

###

Enclosed in his hydrochamber, Liam heard none of Alexa's efforts, nor could he see anything in his laboratory. Cut off from the world, it felt like 10 minutes had passed, even though he knew it couldn't have been more than a few seconds.

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. A thousand golden sparks flew before his subconscious mind, and he knew Alexa had gained control of the system.

It was now or never.

He gave his conscious mind over to the electronics and felt himself falling into another plane of existence. When the sensation ceased, he opened his eyes and gaped at the surroundings.

He was floating in a world of pitch black, except for the energy sparks darting all around him. It was like being a speck of dust within a giant brain of neural activity. From his vantage point, he could only make out a few dozen tendrils of glowing strands flowing off into infinity, but somehow he knew they were endless.

Every now and then, a flick of energy would buzz through the network, like a firefly on a mission. Liam knew from his previous visits that all of these sparks traveled in the same direction. There was no compass, no stars, no landmarks to gain a bearing. He didn't even know if this plane had an orientation. But still he thought he knew where they were going, and he was perfectly willing to bet everything on his hunch.

In the back of his mind, he became aware of an increasing shriek and shuddering. If such sensations were reaching him here, two worlds removed from his ship, things could not be going well outside of the sensory deprivation chamber.

He gazed at the status bar programmed to appear on his wrist. The power levels were rising. Whether or not they'd reach capacity before all hell broke loose, he did not know. But he had faith in Alexa and concentrated on following the intermittent sparks along on their web-weaving journeys.

The shaking and shrieking were more than background noise now—it was a part of this alternate reality. It intruded like a freight train on an unsuspecting napper's slumber. He frowned at his wrist as the power levels reached 95 percent. He had no idea if this Hail Mary had a shot in Hell—Alexa had been right about the status of his models and calculations—but he'd never relied on anything as much as he had his own brain and intuition.

And they hadn't failed him yet.

As the meter crept up to 98 percent, Liam became aware of something else—a glow illuminating his wrist. He spun around in his mind's eye and dropped his nonexistent jaw.

The web of tendrils was no longer trickling with fireflies behind him, it was cascading toward him in a spectacular light show coming from the edge of infinity and beyond.

Not knowing what else to do, he turned and fled in the opposite direction, but it soon became clear that it was no use. Even though the tidal wave of lightning was eons away, it would be upon him within seconds.

With one last desperate attempt, he put his back toward the phenomenon and focused all of his energy and willpower on projecting his consciousness forward. Perhaps if Alexa gave him enough power before whatever was behind him arrived, the experiment would succeed.

His gauge now read 99 percent. He closed his eyes and strained. The tsunami of light crashed through him moments after the power levels reached full capacity.

And Liam was no more.

###

Melissa Thomsen slumped back in her office chair, watching the high-tech machinery complete its endless routine through half-a-foot of unbreakable glass. Fill the vials. Inject the cellular samples. Spin the centrifuge. Extract the DNA. Rinse and repeat.

Eying the well-worn pair of running shoes in the corner, she considered going out for an afternoon jog. It was a beautiful day, the minutes were dragging by, and the cloning facility hadn’t needed her attention in months. On the other hand, she’d put in enough miles during those months to wear their soles smooth, and she wasn’t sure when her budget was going to be able to accommodate a new pair.

Muttering to nobody but herself, Melissa instead reached for yet another crossword puzzle. This wasn’t what she had dreamed of while standing in her crimson robes on her first day at the University. It wasn’t even close. Even if keeping the planet populated and supplied with spare parts sounded glamorous to her friends, Melissa and her husband had better get promoted. And fast. She wasn’t sure how long she could stand overseeing the creation of life for others knowing she’d probably never be lucky enough to get to grow one of her own.

Halfway through filling in the first answer of her crossword, the facility’s lights suddenly dimmed and the entire operation froze. Melissa sprang from her seat and began futzing with the controls that appeared in the air. Scanning the data being delivered from subsystem to subsystem, however, didn't reveal any reason for the shutdown.

Beginning step two of the protocol, Melissa walked across the room and mimed the code to let her into the laboratory where the action was happening—or should have been happening, at least. With the door swooshing closed behind her, she grabbed a diagnostic scanner and headed toward the mechanical arms frozen in mid-sequencing.

Melissa ran a diagnostic of the machinery's integrity while looking for wear and tear that might have set off the sensors, but the problem refused to reveal itself. Tapping her foot on the floor and biting the inside of her cheek, she threw up her hands as she ran out of ideas.

If it wasn’t for that muffled thumping sound, she'd be able to concentrate. She'd always found random noises too soft to discern more distracting than even the loudest rumbling chorus of construction crews pounding away at a sidewalk.

Now on a new mission, Melissa headed back farther into the bowels of the facility. She approached a second set of security doors, mimed another complex code into the air, and stepped forward to provide her retina for scanning. One of the few benefits to being short, she had found, was not having to constantly scrunch down for security checks.

She entered a dark, cavernous vault filled with rows of stacked, identical sets of machinery. Each was a marvel of technology, capable of supporting a human life all the way from embryo to adulthood before preserving it in suspended animation for hundreds of years.

And yet, walking through a maze of human beings floating in eternal slumber always gave her the creeps.

It was, however, the only way to get to the office of the only other conscious being in the building, so it was a trip she had to make more often than she liked. And this trip was necessary; if she couldn't figure out what was going on, perhaps he could. The machines may have been her responsibility, but the software was his. That's what made them such a great team. That's what had earned them the positions. That's why she'd married him.

Practically tip-toeing farther into the space, she could tell that the noise was coming from somewhere in the room. The vault was so large, however, that her own footsteps sounded like they were coming from five different places at once, so she couldn't tell which direction to explore.

She had nearly reached her husband's door when something caught her attention from the corner of her eye. Something that every human eye has been trained to notice for millions of years.

Movement.

She froze as a chill ran down her spine. For the first time in her life, she gaped openly and was rendered motionless, just like she always saw in the movies. It took a few seconds, but the small part of her mind that wasn't yet panicking finally wretched control back and forced her to sprint the rest of the way.

Pounding on the stainless steel door, she shouted, "Jack! Jack, get out here!" After a few more slams of her fist, she remembered the office was soundproof, fingered a spot behind her ear, and repeated the frantic call.

The doors whooshed open and her husband appeared. Tall and pale with a half-head of wild red hair, he always seemed to carry an air of being nonplussed. But with the frantic look in his wife's demeanor, he managed to make himself plussed.

"What is it?" he said, almost tripping over the words. All Melissa could manage to do was yelp and point. Jack followed her index finger and started walking in that direction. It didn't take long for him to drop the pen he'd been holding. "What…what the…that's impossible!"

Floating inside a glowing blue column of gel in front of her dumbfounded husband was an infant with its face scrunched up in the throes of a soundless scream doing its best to thump its way free of its chamber.

"I know it is!" Melissa snapped, finally coming back to reality. "But we have to act fast!"

She shoved her husband out of the way and ran up to the chamber. Tapping into the control panel, she shouted, "Quickly! Grab one of the resuscitation carts! I don't know how long it'll last in there now that it's awake!"

She disabled the suspended animation sequence that should have been keeping the baby asleep, even if it had already received its Soulular Energy through a successful Transmigration ritual. The liquid gel began draining from the bottom down. As soon as it dropped below the infant's mouth, all hell broke loose.

An ear-piercing screech came pounding out of the machine as the baby's eyes flew open for the first time. Melissa breathed easier as the baby seemed unharmed and popped open the container once the gel finished draining.

Her husband flew up behind them with a floating emergency cart, but slowed once he saw his wife reaching in to scoop up the child. Wordlessly, he offered the only thing that seemed to be needed—a towel.

"How is this possible, Melissa?" His whisper was barely audible over the impressive lung capacity of the newly born child. "I haven't heard of any unscheduled Separations in months."

"It isn't," she replied, swaying back and forth as she'd seen so many mothers do in the movies. "What do we do?"

Despite the question, her eyes clearly indicated that she already knew the answer.

Chapter 1

Ripley Thomsen ducked just in time to see a white projectile fly inches past his head and crash against the stone wall behind him.

He wasn't fast enough to dodge the second one.

"What the…?" That was all Ripley managed to get out before an explosion of yellow bloomed like a flower across his chest, instantly transforming his pristine crimson red dress robes into yet another symbol of his social status.

Ripley grimaced and clenched his fists. It wasn't just that the only decent clothing he owned was now unwearable to Convocation, it was the utter lack of respect for the eggs. It took a special sort of indifference to money to waste what so few could afford, and an even rarer lack of morals to waste them when peoples' unborn children were being sacrificed for their production.

"Got the stupid Newborn!"

"I bet that's the closest he's ever gotten to eating a real egg in his entire life!"

The taunts came from Ripley's new roommates, who he'd nicknamed "The B's" partly because they had yet to miss an opportunity to sting what little pride he had, and partly because their names were Brock and Bentley.

"You're right," Ripley said, wiping what yolk he could off his dress robes with his hands and flinging it back in their general direction. "But syntheggs sure beat a huge helping of guilt. You know most people aren’t okay with stealing perfectly good souls just to eat animal products, right?"

Brock just rolled his eyes. Like everyone Ripley had ever met, Brock Wilson had a lightly tanned complexion to go along with his more individualistic features: black, greasy hair; brown, squinty eyes; and a long, pointy nose, all perched on top of an unimpressively skinny 5'2" frame.

In short—pun intended—Brock was ugly. But that didn't stop him from acting like he owned everything within sight. A character trait like that was difficult to avoid for Legacies like him.

Pulling an empty box out of the garbage next to the kitchen's massive island, Brock asked, "What about this meat, if that's what you can call it? Every synthetic protein I’ve ever had tasted like cardboard soaked in chicken stock."

"Oh, that stuff I just really enjoy," replied Ripley with a quirk of a smile. He didn't really. Nobody did.

"The only way anyone can stomach that crap is if they've never had the real thing. You'd be singing a different tune if you could afford even a taste of a filet mignon."

Brock was closer to the truth than Ripley cared to let on—it was more a matter of wealth than morals that kept Ripley from becoming a carnivore. In another lifetime he might have happily eaten filet mignon at every meal. But still, he didn't entirely hate the synthetic protein. Since his parents' jobs had always barely kept them out of poverty, the chicken-stock-cardboard tasted like home.

"Take it easy on him, it's not the Newborn's fault," said Ripley's other new roommate, Bentley Franklin. Taller and heavier than Ripley and Brock, Bentley's strong, square jaw featured just the right amount of stubble. "I'll bet most of his meals have been the same cheap brand of meal replacement bar. Even having bread must be a new luxury for him."

It was true. Most of the ingredients automatically stocked in the dormitory kitchen were luxuries to him. Ripley started to sulk back but stopped mid-turn; he’d have to start standing up for himself at some point. "At least my entry to the University wasn't purchased by my parents. I earned my way here."

Bentley grinned and put his arm around Brock's shoulder. It was almost a comical site. At 6'4", Bentley towered more than a foot above his smaller friend. And as much as Ripley hated to admit it, he was rather handsome as well; his parents had clearly paid for a better geneticist.

"You think that's an insult, but it's not," said Bently while thumping Brock on the back with his formidable arm. "You look like you've worked your ass off every single day for the past 10 years trying to earn a scholarship."

"You bet I did.” Ripley had, in fact, spent almost two decades perfecting both his physics skills and swimming stroke to ensure he'd get one of the few, highly coveted scholarships.

"And yet your future is still in doubt while the two of us are destined for greatness. Our families have already made sure of that."

Brock puffed out his chest as best he could and added, "It must be rough for Newborns like you with no Legacy to trace their soul back through. Where did you get yours anyway, some murderer nobody wants in their family tree? The Lottery is such a crapshoot."

Ripley flushed at the insult. Brock looked to Bentley for approval and, finding a grin giving way to a sneer, led the pair toward the doorway. "Come on, let's go to Convocation before we miss it waiting for his pathetic comeback."

Somehow, someway, Ripley knew he'd have to learn how to live with these people for at least a year. How he got stuck with two of his worst nightmares was beyond his comprehension. The system was supposedly random, but Ripley had his doubts. Having attended a high school full of rich-born Legacies ready to prop up their fragile egos at the expense of his low-born status, Ripley should have been used to such exchanges by now…but he wasn't.

He wasn't sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing, but he had hoped the University might be different. And even though he'd only been on campus for a couple of days…it wasn't.

At least not yet.

Still fuming, Ripley tried to calm himself by taking in his surroundings again. It still seemed too good to be true.

The kitchen opened directly into the living room, which alone was the size of his entire house. The grey-stoned walls perfectly framed the giant bay windows at one end looking out onto the rolling ocean. While they weren't on the right side of campus to see the ancient city ruins poking out above the waves, the view was still far better than the industrial wind farms he was used to. The living room also featured an overstuffed leather couch, two of the comfiest armchairs Ripley had ever sat in, and a crimson red carpet that felt like heaven beneath his calloused feet.

Turning toward his bedroom, one of the three that emptied directly into the common living space, Ripley considered crawling back into bed. It'd be a lot easier. Maybe he could slip back into his lovely dream of Convocation, where he had met a brilliant and beautiful young woman with long, velvety black hair.

Reality had not, unfortunately, lived up to the dream. But it didn't have to. It'd cost him to miss an entire childhood and adolescence of having fun and goofing off, but he was finally here. It was Convocation at the University, and Ripley had a seat waiting for him at the ceremony. He wasn't going to let the likes of the B's spoil it for him.

Picking his steps as best he could across his already messy room, Ripley rushed to clean up the egg on his dress robes. He had a stain-removing laser ready for just such an occasion stowed away in his sock drawer. It was a great stroke of luck, as long as you considered a long history of having food thrown at you a form of luck.

After a few minutes, the splotch on his chest wasn't gone, but it wasn't noticeable either. Ripley smiled—the robes must have some sort of inherent stain-fighting technology. It felt odd having the smooth, plush fabric draped over his skin when he was used to third-hand, threadbare clothing. And it was even odder seeing the bright crimson colors staring back at him in the mirror, when he normally couldn't even tell what color his clothes had originally been.

Spotting the same straggling hair in the mirror as always, Ripley's grin melted to a frown. He cupped his hands beneath the running faucet and smoothed water across his full head of short, brown hair to make it lay down. He then ran his fingers through it, swishing half over to one side and squinting his deep brown eyes ever so slightly to make sure the maneuver worked properly.

Not for the first time, Ripley wished his eyes were worth the cost to fix. Or that his parents had been able to afford a geneticist of their own, even there was no guarantee that he'd have turned out any way other than the less-than-perfect eye-sighted person he was.

Satisfied that the position of his hair wasn't making his head seem larger than it already was, Ripley declared himself fixed enough to face his future classmates.

Coupled with relatively forgettable features, Ripley's giant noggin had caused him to spend most of his adolescence convinced that he'd never con a woman into dating him. But after growing into it through primary school and spending much of the past ten years training diligently in Lake Superior, even he had to admit that he wasn't entirely unfortunate looking.

Walking back into the kitchen, Ripley instinctively ducked. But there was no egg flying at his face this time. With his roommates out of the picture, Ripley prepared his standard breakfast sandwich without fear of being ridiculed. He fried up a couple of syntheggs while toasting some bread, and then got out the peanut butter, pepper jelly, and two slices of synthetic mosameat.

Ripley found himself smiling as he wolfed down the sandwich. It might be synthetic. It might be unconventional. But it was his, dammit, and so was the next year at the University.

###

As Ripley neared the center of the main quad as he meandered across campus, he caught sight of the stone tower that marked the University's reopening.

The University was beautiful and ancient—at least as ancient as it could be. Bricks weren't made to last multiple centuries, let alone an entire millennium or two, and the encroaching sea had all but destroyed the networked utility services that originally kept the lights on and the water flowing.

But when the oceans were tamed and the temperatures stabilized, people got to work. There was less real estate to fit the buildings on because the University was built on a hill and had become its own island, but you'd be amazed at what can be accomplished by a score of unfathomably wealthy and nostalgic alumni.

With unlimited resources at their disposal, the architects of the University's reclamation stayed true to its origins from more than 1,000 years before. Massive red brick buildings featured towering white columns and regularly spaced windows. Sweeping granite staircases led to rich mahogany doors. Ripley couldn't help but feel like the University's founders had taste, even if they did build it on the ruins of an indigenous civilization.

It wasn't entirely their fault. They were only human. It hadn't been the first genocide in history, and it certainly hadn't been the last.

Ripley turned his face up toward the canopy formed by gigantic oak and elm trees that were each at least 100 years old. He'd read that they all came from specially designated farms that did nothing but grow beautiful trees for transplantation into University soil. The effect was mesmerizing and peaceful. There were a handful of students who were also walking toward the Convocation ceremony, but they spoke in hushed whispers, and the wind did nothing to stir up any melodies from the branches of the slumbering giants overhead.

Finally approaching his destination, Ripley paused to take in the image. He'd spent entire evenings staring at this exact picturesque setting immortalized on his bedroom wall. And now he was actually here.

He could scarcely believe it.

Splayed out before him was a group of the galaxy's finest minds sitting on a stage before the school's library, one of the ground's most prominent buildings and adorned for the special occasion with crimson banners hanging between its giant white pillars. Facing the waiting faculty was a small cluster of chairs specially brought out to the grounds for the occasion.

There couldn't have been more than 50. With the increasing rarity of successful births, it was a wonder that any of the colonies in the United Solar Systems could support institutions of higher education. Earth only had a few remaining, and the University was by far the most selective. It was nearly impossible to get in without the proper birthright.

As he approached the crowd, Ripley surveyed the few dozen soon-to-be students and spotted the face he was looking for in the back corner, as usual. After Ripley waved like an idiot for longer than he cared to, his best friend finally spotted him, beckoned him over, and slapped the empty seat next to him. Ripley was happy to oblige.

"Still always looking to make a quick getaway, Obi?" Ripley asked as he lowered himself into the folding chair covered in plush crimson velvet. "I'd have thought this place was fancy enough to hold you down for at least a few years."

"Well, you know me. I like to keep my options open," said Obadiah Jones, as he leaned his chair back on two legs and stretched his arms out wide. "You're lucky you showed up when you did. I was about to option your seat out to an emerging opportunity."

With a nod, Obi indicated an attractive girl with long, red hair approaching the stands. "Hell, I might still offer up your seat."

Ripley had to laugh. It was classic Obi. His quips always seemed to strike home with those around him—even the teachers he'd annoyed on a daily basis growing up. He had a knack for timing. It didn't hurt that he looked like a miniature superhero, either. And with naturally rugged good looks and sandy blond hair that always seemed to be simultaneously untouched and exactly the way he wanted it, it was no wonder that his social life had always outpaced Ripley's own.

Why Obi had taken a liking to Ripley in the first place, let alone had kept their friendship as Ripley's presence became an increasing drag on his social status, was well beyond Ripley's understanding. Perhaps it was the help with the science and math homework.

As the redhead approached their row, Obi and Ripley stood to make room for her to pass. But while Ripley leaned back and found the surrounding trees suddenly interesting, Obi took his personality into overdrive. Producing the smile voted best in their graduating class, highlighted by the deep dimples it made on his cheeks, Obi swept his hand into the aisle.

"Please excuse me," Obi said as she passed in front of him. "If I'd have known you were planning on sitting back here, I would have saved you a seat."

The girl paused and cocked her head to one side. "And why would that be? You don't even know me."

"And what a shame that is," Obi said extending his hand in greeting. "Hi there. I'm Obadiah Jones. My friends call me Obi. Your hair is more stunning than a Martian sunset."

Ripley had to agree, except that he’d add that it was a perfect frame for her face, which was highlighted by a handful of freckles, gigantic almond-shaped eyes, and lips so full and red that she had to be wearing lipstick. But the rest of her face looked to be unadorned, so perhaps they were just that stunning.

The woman rolled her gray-blue eyes that struck Ripley of his home waters of Lake Superior and responded in kind. Reaching out one hand, she grasped Obi's while tucking some of her long hair behind her ear with the other. The simple move somehow managed to make her even more attractive. "Pleasure to meet you, Obadiah. My name is Rosalyn Pike. My friends call me Rose."

"The pleasure is all mine, Rose.”

Obi pulled her hand up toward his lips, but before he could kiss it, Rosalyn pulled her hand back. "Wait just a minute there mister. You've got to earn that first, and you're not off to a good start."

Without thinking Ripley put himself into the conversation. "The kiss or calling you Rose?"

Rosalyn turned toward Ripley, smiled, and said, "Both. Either. Take your pick."

"I'd pick the nickname."

"Good choice. And you are?"

Ripley’s eyes widened as he realized that he wasn't anywhere close to nervous enough and couldn't force his name out of his mouth. After several long seconds, Obi piped up. "This here is Ripley. His friends call him Riptide."

Ripley felt the temperature of his cheeks rise. "You know I hate that name. You're the only one who calls me that."

"Exactly. Your friends."

"Well, it was nice meeting both of you. I'm sure our paths will cross again soon.” Rosalyn flashed another smile in Ripley's direction and moved farther into the row of seats.

Obi leaned over to his friend and said, "And that, my friend, is why you sit on the edge of a row."

Shaking his head, Ripley asked, "What, to be embarrassed?"

"Who's embarrassed here? She was totally into you!"

"I highly doubt that. You've never been into me and you always claim to have the best taste in the galaxy."

Obi waived him off as Ripley scanned the row of faculty members seated before their newest students. There was a short, fat man with a large, flawless black beard just beginning to show signs of gray. His face was large and round, and his features did everything they could to fill the real estate. He sat with impeccable posture and looked every bit like he believed his chair was, in fact, the throne of the universe.

Sitting next to him was a professor who couldn't have been more of his opposite. Long strands of curly gray hair refused to be contained beneath her traditional University cap. Her robes looked like they hadn't been ironed in at least two decades. And when she wasn't speaking animatedly with her neighbors—other than the portly man seated to her right—her bright green eyes flitted every which way, as if she were about to pounce on some invisible fly that threatened the very fabric of her existence.

Ripley's attention—along with the rest of the crowd's—was then drawn to a tall, thin man with no hair at all beneath his cap. As he approached the podium, he towered above the rest of the faculty, seeming to look down at each individual beneath his hawk-like nose and pursed lips.

Obi nudged Ripley in the ribs, causing him to wince. "That must be Chancellor Stonebridge. Jesus, he doesn't look a day above 80, and he's been here for more than 150 years."

Chancellor Stonebridge cleared his throat into the microphone, silencing the few remaining whispers.

###

"Good morning, my new pupils, and welcome to your University."

His voice was deep and gravelly, commanding the attention of everyone within earshot. While he wasn't loud per se, his voice had an air of authority that amplified his words by at least two orders of magnitude.

"You now sit in the same place as countless individuals before you. This institution was founded 1,969 years ago by a group of colonists who would come to be known as Americans. Over the course of the next few hundred years, it became the greatest institution of learning in the entire world, attracting only the best that society had to offer."

‘Best' was a rather subjective term, Ripley thought, and given the University's heavy preference for pedigree over prospects, he was pretty sure he knew what Chancellor Stonebridge's interpretation of the word was.

"And now, after almost two millennia, that fact hasn't changed one iota. As you will come to find out over the next year, your class not only contains Earth's most promising stars, but also talent from the furthest reaches of the galaxy. For the first time in recent memory, we have accepted the application of a talented young woman from the Outskirts."

There was an audible intake of breath and the beginnings of murmuring conversations. Joining in, Obi leaned over and said, "A woman from the Outskirts? Can you believe it? I'd have thought I'd have noticed her by now."

Peering around the small crowd, it seemed that others had already succeeded where Obi had failed. A group of heads toward the front corner of the audience was all pointing at the same person, who had an empty chair on each side of her. But from his vantage point, Ripley couldn't make heads or tails of her.

Chancellor Stonebridge cleared his throat once again to the desired effect and continued. "No matter where you come from, our institution will not tolerate even the smallest hint of prejudice based on home planet or station. We can't afford to allow such petty differences to distract us anymore.

"We've been here before. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors built a thriving nation and a beacon of education. But in their arrogance and greed, they caused a rapidly changing climate that radically transformed this planet in only a few hundred years. It took nearly twice as long to stop its deterioration.

"Today we find ourselves in a similar plight. But rather than a crumbling environment, we find our very substance is spreading thin. We are quickly running out of souls. And make no mistake, we take equally seriously those who believe we must purify our souls if we wish to keep them from reentering the Guf and those who believe that the Treasury of Souls is nonsense—that there is some unknown scientific force at work that must be understood and manipulated."

Ripley couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. He knew which side was right.

Almost as if the Chancellor sensed Ripley's thoughts, he added, "And just as we will not tolerate any discrimination based on birthplace, neither will we tolerate it based on beliefs—or lack thereof. We cannot afford to leave any stone unturned, and each one of you is working to solve this crisis together, in your own ways.

"And so, Class of 3605, I leave you with this…do your best. Humanity is counting on you."