Alpha Centauri

Prologue

August 7, 1998

A mother sits on a worn-out sofa in a small, ill-looking house, cradling her newborn twins in her arms. It is two days after the children's birth, but it already feels like an eternity. The mother is staring at her sleeping children, wondering about the future ahead of them. How can she raise these children in her poverty she's been stuck in for years? What kind of a mother would she be to neglect her son and daughter of the future they deserve? She's barely slipping by herself, and she doubts she can pull them along with her.

Suddenly, she feels another presence in the small house. It's powerful, too powerful to belong here.

"Catherine," says a masculine, peculiarly-accented voice.

Catherine looks up to see a tall, strongly-built man dressed in a metallic-looking trench coat. His piercing blue, gold-ringed eyes stand out the most about him, practically glowing in the dim lighting of the house.

"What are we going to do, Calabastor?"

Calabastor says nothing. He shouldn't be here. He should have just fled after his mistake. He should have never associated himself with Catherine.

"I can't raise these two here. I can barely get myself by. You...you have to take them."

"They are children, Catherine, not items to give away," Calabastor says sternly. "They were born here. I can hardly call them my kind."

"Calabastor, you're their father. You can't just leave them."

"I must. They will never be accepted."

"They don't belong here either. But you can teach them. I... Don't you want the best for them?"

Calabastor shakes his head. "I'm sorry, but I can't."

Tears sting in Catherine's eyes. She can't bear to think of neglecting her son and daughter when they could've had something better.

"I'm sorry, Catherine," Calabastor admits.

A blue light starts to encase him. Catherine knows what's happening.

"I love you, Calabastor," she says, tears streaming down her face.

Calabastor hears her, but he doesn't reply, because he's not sure it's safe for him to say the same.

Catherine turns away, squeezing her teary eyes shut, and hugging her twins to her chest. In a flash of brilliant blue light, the children's father is gone.

May 6, 2010

The old school bus meanders up the mountain leaving a trail of dusty clouds behind it. The inside of the bus is full of the chatter and laughter of restless seventh-graders, anxious to end this long bus ride and release their built-up energy.

Julian leans his head back on the beat-up bus seat and lets out a long sigh. He tries to tune out the dozens of conversations going on around him. His looks at his sister, who's sitting next to him, tapping out a rhythm to a song on her knee, humming along. She deals with the constant noise by creating her own.

Julian is about to dig out his next Harry Potter and work on making a bigger dent in that book when he hears a commotion beside him. He and his sister look over at the seat across from theirs and see Brandon Michel, the class's biggest bully. Everyone in the middle school cowers in his presence, not daring to even speak to him. Especially now, when he's in the process of picking on the weak. His victim today is Nathan Kolyma, an undersized math and science genius with a taste for science fiction novels.