Synopsis

What if your child has special powers and can get people to do almost anything? What happens if the child is abducted?Izzie and Tristan were never mere humans. They are Charismites, with almost god-like powers of magnetism. And they couldn’t be more different. Izzie is a reckless, playful megastar whose popularity far exceeds that of any other celebrity. Tristan is a nature-loving recluse, almost completely unknown to anyone beyond a protective biodome.
Their worlds explode when they are abducted by The Fist, a power-hungry political group with a master plan to control the hearts and minds of all people on Earth and satellite colonies beyond. But the plan only works with the help of Charismites.

Their families don’t have much to go on until a feisty, street-wise teen, Cheeta, discovers clues about the Charismites within a strange metaverse filled with millions of missing messages. But will they actually find them? And can they destroy The Fist before they take over the planet?

Filled with an eclectic cast of characters, a slow-burn romance, humor, and wonderful descriptions of a sensual and sometimes violent world, Universe of Lost Messages is a stand-alone sequel to Janet Stilson’s beloved novel, The Juice. Fans of William Gibson, Margaret Atwood, dystopian novels and science fiction thriller books will devour this masterful adventure.

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Excerpt

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Chapter 3, Universe of Lost Messages. It’s been slightly edited to keep down the word count and avoid references to characters and certain details that might be confusing to anyone who hasn’t read the earlier chapters. This section is narrated by Shakespear, who is a producer at a large media corporation called Nuhope. He and his mother are visiting family friends, the Ellingtons.

Shortly before their visit, Shakespear’s 17-year-old sister, Izzie, disappeared.

The Ellingtons live in a biodome encompassing 75 acres in upstate New York, completely protected from the outside world. The family includes a tech whiz named Jarat, his wife, Luscious, and their son, Tristan, who’s 17.

There’s a big reason for their seclusion. Like Izzie, Tristan and Luscious are gifted with extraordinary powers of charisma. They are what’s known as Charismites, because they can get anyone to do almost anything. This would make them powerful tools of mind control, if they were forced to do the bidding of the wrong people. While Izzie’s disappearance is mysterious, there’s a fear that she has been abducted by some bad actors. Tristan and Luscious might be next.

As this excerpt begins, Shakespear has been trying to find Tristan within the biodome. He wants to get him into a bunker beneath the Ellington’s house, where he’ll be even more protected. Shakespear finally locates him in a field.

Tristan’s dark hair was airborne, an angel cloud shining with reflected light. There was usually a sense of openness and wonder about his dark eyes, which turned into an endless blue when he was tremendously excited. He could make even a city rat like me get all mushy about a bumbling beetle. A wet spider web in the forked branches of a tree became a bedazzled raindrop necklace when he talked about it. He saw everything in the woods and fields like a magic child—which I suppose, in a sense, he was.

He mesmerized any unsuspecting human around him. That was one reason why so few were allowed in the compound. My chest swelled with love at the sight of that head. Tris was the closest I’d ever come to a younger brother.

In earlier years, he’d galumph like a puppy through the fields on lazy summer days, excited to show me frogs in a far-off pond that were about to lay eggs. He took me to dens where foxes were nursing their cubs. They never ran away from Tristan.

My knees nearly buckled with relief when I spotted him in the field. But then anger welled up fast and hard. “What the hell? Tristan! Get back to the house!”

As he turned to me, his eyes were glassy with defeat. He didn’t seem capable of moving.

Drawing nearer, I realized he was holding a baby rabbit, its belly ripped open, blood all over Tristan’s arms. Dead. “I thought I could help it,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t think it would take much time.”

“Okay. But it’s gone. So let’s go.”

He looked down through the tall goldenrod. “Will you bury him?”

“Yes, of course,” said a hushed voice. A light-haired young woman rose to her feet. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, dressed simply, in loose brown trousers rolled up above her ankles, a big white blouse. Her eyes spoke of ancestors from the Indian subcontinent, and I had the sensation that Tris and the woman were revolving together. What the fuck?

“Meet Geneva. Geneva, this is Shake.”

“Yes, I know,” she said.

“Really?” Tristan was incredulous.

“The Prince of Nuhope. That show you did, Heaven Warriors, it was like Nuhope’s highest-rated drama ever, wasn’t it?”

“Uh huh.”

“I was totally hooked.”

Her attempt at charming me was falling way flat. What the hell was she doing there?

“Gen helps me with the animals,” Tristan said.

Right. “How did you get in here?” I asked coldly.

She shrugged innocently, eyes on Tris.

“That’s our secret,” Tristan said. A whirring sound battered the air, louder and louder above the dome. Terror shot through me. What was coming towards us?

“Let’s go.” I took Tristan’s arm, pulling him toward the house. Another sound, a buzzing, louder and louder.

Tristan’s face electrified. “Da.”

Jarat tore through the field on his hoverbike, aiming straight for us. Overhead, there was an explosion as two aircraft broke the dome and dropped straight down, quick as a heartbeat. One of them landed right in front of the house—the other in the field beside us.

A stream of light shot out of the ’craft, blasting Jarat’s bike. He was thrown across the field. Tristan screamed, started to rush toward him, but I yanked him away. Where could we go?

Three bots that looked like eight-foot metal spiders crawled out of the aircraft and raced toward us, much faster than we were running. I turned around just long enough to see one of them attack Jarat. Another spider bot grabbed my head in its tentacles, squeezing hard. The pain was so intense I was sure it was about to crack my skull.

Tristan screamed.

“Run!” I yelled, flailing around wildly, unable to get free.

The world reeled. I started to lose consciousness. Geneva gazed down on me, untouched by the bots. In a split second, I saw it: all the sympathy and cruelty in those black eyes as I blacked out.

Sharp pain roiled my head, my brain. I opened my eyes to my mother, slapping me hard, furious with fear.

“I don’t think you should do that!” said her bot, Geoff.

“Well, he’s coming around!”

Fighting to ignore the hammering in my skull, I cranked my head over to one side. Geoff was a little way away trying to help Jarat. He was lifeless in the flattened grass with a huge gash in his skull. “Is he going to be okay?” I croaked.

“Yes,” Mother said.

Couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief, not yet. “Tristan?”

Her sorrowful face said it all. Tristan had vanished. So had Geneva.

Text copyright © 2024 by Janet Stilson, Published by Dragon Moon Press

About the Author

Janet Stilson writes scripts, novels, and short stories that largely fall in the sci-fi and fantasy genres and illuminate the human condition in provocative ways.

Her work has been selected to be part of the Writers’ Lab for Women, which is funded by Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman. And it’s also been published by the esteemed sci-fi literary magazine Asimov’s.

As a journalist, Janet got her “chops” at the storied showbiz bible Variety. She has traveled the world, chronicling the business of media.

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