Bulletproof!

By Adi Kjolen

This voice has shadowed Preston since the accident, protecting her from strife and unseen dangers. Now, it's ordering her to behave bizarrely: insisting she crash the concert of a band she detests, accost the drummer, and inform him that she is a turtle.
Marked for immortality when she dies, Preston has become an unwitting pawn in a covert tug-of-war, unaware that two spirits - one good, one evil - are fighting for control of her soon to be indestructible body. With Armageddon looming, the good spirit, Preston's guardian since birth, must ensure that it is the one who wins possession.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inspiring Publishers / ASPG
• Release date: Aug 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781922920652

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The Angels

Støren, Norway

July 14th, 1345

Fuck! said Ådil, for the thousandth time, his black eyes glistening with panic.

He, along with his three alien companions, were standing in the sleek white control room of their spaceship and looking, with varying levels of concern, at the naked hybrid that Ådil had ‘accidentally’ created.

Well, at least he’s not green, offered Våseom.

Or hairless, Ilvæus added, telepathically, nodding at the wiry brown tufts that clung to the hybrid’s chest, limbs and genitals.

The quartet all wore white, simplistic, tracksuit-like uniforms, each with subtle differences in cut and embellishment. Their slick white boots were never dirty, no matter what surface they trod on. This curious bunch weren’t speaking English of course; they were speaking Ajiouan, their common native tongue. Ylvaus, the fourth member, stepped forward take a closer look at the crossbred oddity, who was standing upright, although unconscious, in a clear stasis tube.

Like the ‘men’ surrounding him, the hybrid looked to be in his mid-twenties. Born one hour prior via caesarean section, this hybrid was, thankfully, far more human-looking than Ajiouan. Tall and bearded with tangles of long, flaxen hair, he had his mother’s peculiar white skin and ice-blue eyes. Technology on the ship had aged him to twenty-four years old in a matter of hours.

Well, he definitely looks like you, Ådil, said Ylvaus, cocking his head at the tube. He’s got your ugly face.

Shut up Ylvaus, you stupid prick! Ådil snapped, pacing back and forth. I’ve had enough of your shit!

Although the stupid prick was right - the hybrid did have Ådil’s features: the long, sad face, the big, doleful eyes, the strong nose and high forehead. Everything was the same, except for the dazzling hair and the bizarre white skin that held it all together.

There was a moment of heavy silence between the Angels. In it was a shared telepathic acknowledgement of just how disastrous the past week had been. It seemed a lifetime ago that they had crash landed on this beautiful, albeit dangerously primitive planet. If only they had trusted their common sense and not gotten out of the ship, none of this would have happened.

By the time Ådil’s hybrid child was born, The Angels had been trapped in Støren for nine days. Now, they were edging uncomfortably close to a critical deadline. Their spacecraft, which had nearly been destroyed after slamming into a dense Norwegian spruce forest, was the cause of their maroonment. It was still repairing itself. The progress readout on the port-side engineering screen was flashing angrily in red, stuck at

which was the Ajiouan symbol for 55 percent. It hadn’t changed in twenty-four hours. Blinking tirelessly, it weathered the frowns and scowls on the quartet of green faces that occasionally stopped by to consider and/or swear at it.

The Angels couldn’t afford to be late for their original destination – a much anticipated concert on the far-flung planet of Laphedus Minor. It was due to take place in five days.

The Angels were meant to be the headlining performers, and as such, if they didn’t show up, search parties – including the Saxis (Ajiouan Space Police) - would most certainly be sent to scour their travel route. But, figuring out how they were going to explain their possible absence would have to wait until later. Right now, they had a bigger headache to contend with. A living, breathing headache, propped up naked in a stasis tube.

Beside the tube, near enough now to appreciate the antibacterial sting seeping from the small vents, Ilvæus pressed a hand to his mouth in thought. Just like the rest of the Angels, he was humanoid looking - nose, eyes mouth and ears in roughly the same configuration as a human, although with slightly more angular, snake like features. Thanks to his peculiar strain of immorality, he, nor any other Ajiouan, aged outwardly passed the age of twenty-four. He had a thick, silky mop of dark brown hair, cut much like a medieval monk’s tonsure (minus the bald cap), although his mint green skin was devoid of hair anywhere else, save for his eyebrows.

Question is, Ilvæus began, his usually measured telepathic tone heavy with unease, is he an immortal?

Våseom, who was tall and a paler shade of mint green than the others, and who sported a neck full of black tribal tattoos¹ and long, intricately woven, bright red cornrows, reluctantly tapped at a nearby screen. The computer trilled with a string of incongruently cheerful beeps and then threw up a slideshow of startling images.

Yep, he replied, disheartened. He’s one of us all right. Look at that cell structure.

The images, taken with a ridiculously powerful microscope, were magnifications of a skin sample. They showed The Angels exactly what they didn’t want to see.

Piggybacking on each of the hybrid’s nuclei were singular, infinitesimally small dark spheres, all of them shining with the rainbow spectrum, like Tahitian pearls or finely polished fire obsidian. The Angels knew these spheres as Vothmir. An ancient symbiotic race, the Vothmir were the cause of the Angels’ - and now the hybrid’s - immortality.

Fuuuuuck!

Ådil grabbed his head and twisted from the screen. A whirlwind of panicked thoughts, none of them at all helpful, tore through his mind as his heart hammered, dull and furious, in the centre of his chest. The vibration pounded in his ears, thumped in his throat, each beat increasing the suffocating sense of dread. His stomach was already his boots. His bowels – which he had only ever used a handful of times in his two-century existence - felt as if they too were about to go out in sympathy and drop to the floor. This shouldn’t have happened. It seemed like an awfully obvious statement, but humans and Ajiouans were, despite things being more or less the same when it came to reproductive organs, entirely different species. How the hell had a reproduction taken place? Poor Ådil really should have researched further into human DNA before letting his lust get the better of him.

Congratulations, champ, Ylvaus said, turning from the screen and clapping Ådil on the back, who had frozen stiff, palms clapped to his temples. You’re the father of a half-caste alien bastard. You must be so proud. His eyes, although black at first glance, rolled with deep, iridescent neons, just like the Vothmir spheres inside him. It was the only real indication of their symbiotic presence. Underneath his curly brown hair, Ylvaus’s mischievous, fangy smirk was completely at home on his elven features.

Ådil turned, slowly, lowering his hands from his head. His shaggy chestnut locks were unkempt, his perpetually sad face taut with a mixture of desperation, anxiety and wild-eyed fury. If the statement ‘You’re about to get your head caved in, mate’ had a facial expression, Ådil was wearing it now.

"Don’t you dare blame all of this on me," he growled, sliding menacingly towards Ylvaus, who was now casually resting his backside against the tilted control panel of ship’s softly blinking central navigation bank. His unfazed, arms crossed attitude was entirely at odds with Ådil’s threatening approach.

"You were the one who started this, you stepped out of the ship first," Ådil continued, stopping just shy of Ylvaus’ personal space and throwing a pointed finger over to the far wall, where a blonde teenage girl, heaped in a long brown woollen dress and shawl, was also standing frozen inside a clear stasis tube. Underneath her long, white-golden locks and loose layers of farming garb, there was no evidence whatsoever that she had undergone a caesarean sixty minutes’ prior. The ship’s medical technology had fused the muscle and skin of her delicate white abdomen back together without fuss.

The girl and Ådil had engaged in a secret sexual encounter only forty-eight hours beforehand. The Ajiouan reproductive process was much faster than its human parallel. The hybrid embryo had begun to grow inside the girl mere minutes after she and Ådil had consummated their forbidden forest tryst. The pregnancy had been discovered by the ship’s computer when the girl had stepped back inside the craft. Instead of showing one life form, the bio-metric scanner had shown two. Recognising that this was unusual (and seizing the opportunity to further stir chaos), the computer had set off an alarm, highlighting the discovery to all onboard. The sudden, profound silence that had fallen between the (previously light-hearted) Angels once they realised the computer wasn’t malfunctioning would have been comical in any other circumstance.

"You were the one who ran down the hill and hypnotised her, Ådil continued, flashing his (usually hidden) wolf-like lower fangs and looming over Ylvaus, who was still smirking. You were the one who insisted we bring her back to the ship."

Ylvaus shrugged. I didn’t screw her though.

Ådil tensed, ready to strike. Våseom (who had begun to stride over as soon as he caught Ådil’s You wanna go? expression) stepped between the pair, gently pushing Ådil away while simultaneously blocking his view of Ylvaus.

Calm down, the pair of you, he ordered, his deep, authoritarian tone commanding respect despite not being raised. It’s done now. We’ll just have to deal with it.

"But how?!" Ådil yelped, taking a step back and smacking a palm to his forehead in exasperation. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would somehow make the nightmare go away. Uncontrollably, his hand wiped itself down over his face, mashing over his nose and mouth as he spoke through his skyrocketing stress levels. "If the cops find out we’ve created a hybrid we’re fucking toast!"

"Pfft!" Ylvaus puffed incredulously, tilting his head to peek from behind Våseom’s back. "What do you mean, we?"

At that, Ådil shoved Våseom aside and laid into Ylvaus. It felt good to punch the mouthy little smart arse straight in his stupid green face over and over again, which was unusual, given Ådil was supposed to be an Angel of mercy.

In the end, the Angels (henceforth known by their nicknames of Aud, Illy, Voss and Yuli), had no choice but to turn their hybrid son, and his teenage mother, loose into Medieval Norway. They certainly couldn’t take them back home with them. It would be proof positive that they had interfered with an alien life-form, which, as per Ajiouan law, carried an instant death penalty.

Despite being immortals, these Angels could indeed be put to death. Should the Saxis discover any of their antics, they would be hauled before the Heteraxis (Ajiouan Supreme Court), tried, and if convicted, have their Vothmir symbionts removed from their bodies by Udir, the High King of the Heteraxis, who had control over all Vothmir.

This act of removal wouldn’t bother the Vothmir itself. No matter what, it - or they - persisted as an immortal life form, albeit a very strangely shaped one. Upon removal, they would simply return to the King. The unfortunate Ajiouan host, however, would drop dead on the spot; euthanised not by the removal of the Vothmir per se, rather by King Udir’s command. When Vothmir were ordered to something, they did it.

As far as inter-species symbiotic relationships went, the Ajiouan/Vothmirian model was far from perfect. The Ajiouans had discovered the microscopic spheres while halfway through their ten-thousand-year journey through deep space towards their new home planet of Vyrimine (the old one, Ajiou, had been vaporized in a gamma ray burst). The Vothmir were without symbiotic hosts at the time, and had manifested as one huge, clumped together entity. If you can imagine a Tahitian pearl the twice the size of Jupiter floating in space, you’ll be able to appreciate just how awestruck the Ajiouans were at the sight of it.

The Vothmir spoke telepathically to the Ajiouans, explaining that they – the Vothmir - were an ancient immortal race whose sole desire was to study other life forms. They did so by fusing with said life form, providing not only immortality, but also other fantastic abilities like teleportation and shape shifting. The Vothmir were neutral and wanted nothing in return, apart from the opportunity to learn. Should they be allowed to form a symbiotic relationship with the Ajiouans, they would bend to the will of their hosts and not ask questions nor interfere with their behaviour. They would remain wedded to the Ajiouans until such time, if ever, the Ajiouans wanted to be free.

Naturally the Ajiouans were wary at first. When they asked the Vothmir what would happen if they declined their offer and left, the Vothmir replied that they would simply remain where they were and wait for another life form to pass by.

This proposal put the Ajiouans, a naturally benevolent race, in a rather difficult position. Should they refuse the offer and leave, there was every possibility that a malevolent race (of which there were, sadly, far too many) would discover, then fuse with the Vothmir.

Seeing as no-one aboard the huge Ajiouan ship liked the idea of one day encountering a malevolent race of teleportal, indestructible, shape shifting aliens, they agreed to host the Vothmir.

At the time, Udir Mathalphalon, a humble and wise old Ajiouan gent, was one of the ten Supreme Judges of the Heteraxis, the council of eight men and two women who set the rule of Ajiouan society. It was he who was elected, by democratic vote, to absorb the Seed Vothmir, i.e., the original cell from which all Vothmir had multiplied. This single cell could be programmed by Udir, allowing him to set certain restrictions on Vothmir abilities as he saw fit, while also giving him the sole power to remove the Vothmir from any given host. With the exception of only two historical cases, Vothmir removal was a death sentence. King Udir could euthanise the entire Ajiouan race if he felt like it. Luckily, he was as benevolent as he was wise. Once given the power, he only euthanised his kinfolk in cases where it was absolutely called for. Cases where the accused had done something really beyond the pale, like, say, crash landing on an alien planet and having it off with one of the local girls and producing a hybrid immortal son.

So, Udir took the Seed, while the rest of the symbionts were spread throughout the adults of the colony. The children aboard the ship during that momentous era were not permitted to take on the Vothmir until they had reached adulthood, where they were then given their immortality by King Udir, via what was known, somewhat underwhelmingly, as a ‘Direct Transfer Ceremony’. A touch of King Udir’s hand to a forehead was all it took; he could will the Vothmir to multiply inside him and fuse with the new host.

Interestingly, King Udir didn’t program any restrictions on Direct Transfers. Any Ajiouan was free to do it, provided they could accept the swift death that would surely befall them if they did. Udir ruled that possessing such a skill and having the willpower not to use it was the ultimate test of character – a test that was flunked by only a handful of Ajiouans over the millennia.

And so, a new symbiotic race was slowly formed. With the Vothmir inside them, the Ajiouans became indestructible, although their physical bodies weren’t immune to damage as such. Falling off a cliff, for example, would cause their skin to burst and their bones to break, but everything would heal back over almost instantly. It was this process that eventually gave birth to the terms Regenerism, and Regenerist, which the Ajiouans favoured when describing their indestructibility to other species.

The extent of bodily damage didn’t matter. An Ajiouan could be decapitated and within moments, a brand-new head would simply regenerate where the old one had been, full of the same memories and personality traits as the last. Luckily, this kind of horrifying spectacle didn’t happen very often.

Furthermore, the Ajiouans no longer needed to eat in order to survive. This was a tremendous advantage insofar as the cost of food production was concerned. That being said, they could consume food if they wanted to, but the act became more of a novelty than anything else. A novelty which, thanks to the diminishing need for toilet facilities, could have embarrassing repercussions if you didn’t plan ahead.

All Ajiouans wore white boots and tracksuits; uniforms known as Ch’kussku [ch-CUSS-koo /tʃ.’kʌs.ku:/ - literally ‘skin of white’]. Colloquially referred to as Kusku(s) (Whites), these uniforms were damage proof², weatherproof, self-cleaning, and possessed in-built tele-holographic technology that allowed the wearer to program and project a solid representation of any outfit they liked, simply by imagining it. A Kusku also kept the wearer’s body at a comfortable, constant temperature and continually sanitized. Provided they chose to forego stripping off for things like sex or a refreshing dip in the sea, a fully grown Ajiouan could spend eternity in their Kusku and never once have the need to wash it or themselves.

The only difference in Kuskus could be found in the delicate yet glossy embossments around the neck and wrist areas; distinct, ‘dripping’ patterns that began at the edge of the collar and cuffs before trailing down/away into the plain white fabric. As there were four groups of Ajiouan sub-species, so too were there four different Kusku collar-and-cuff patterns. While it wasn’t particularly difficult to tell one sub species from another (given that each had distinct facial and skin tone characteristics) Kusku embossments served as a further reminder of what tribe any particular Ajiouan came from. Great pride was taken in wearing these ancestral patterns.

That being said, Kuskus were generally not worn in their default, plain-white setting outside of the home or intimate, familiar company. To do so was considered lazy (and in some instances, rude); somewhat akin to wearing your pyjamas in public. Prison was the only exception, wherein inmates often chose to remain in unprogrammed Kuskus due to the severe restrictions placed on flamboyant and individualised clothing.

Nevertheless, getting your final Kusku on your twenty fourth birthday was a big deal for Ajiouans. Along with it came the realization that you had reached your ultimate, age-defying form, and that your Kusku would be your second skin for life.

When it came to reproduction, Ajiouan babies were gestated and delivered in much the same fashion as humans, with the only differences being that they a) formed in the womb faster, b) were born immortal and c) stopped ageing at twenty-four. This was due to Udir’s programming.

As the entire Vothmir colony could be programmed by the King to obey any sort of order, be it physical or mental, all Ajiouans stopped ageing at twenty-four, which, in ancient Ajiouan culture, was considered the Golden Age. Save for Udir and the first generation Ajiouans who had taken on the Vothmir, all adult Ajiouans looked to be in the prime of their lives.

Thousands of years passed in the Ajiouan/Vothmir symbiotic relationship without any major incidents or difficulties, until of course the Angels crash landed on Thera and ‘accidentally’ spread the Vothmir to a second species.

Should the ever-present Ajiouan space police, the Saxis, have thrown together a rap sheet on the Angels’ Theran adventure, it would have looked like this:

The ‘Not reporting a Kypre encounter’ charge alone would have gotten them in big trouble, never mind the ‘creating life’ or ‘causing death’ charges.

The Angels’ journey to Laphedus Minor had been cruising along nicely until they encountered the Kypre. After that, things went pear shaped fast, and seemed destined to stay that way forever.

The Kypre were one of the strangest species in the Multiverse. No one had ever actually seen them, so it was