Jupiter… How fitting, Sera stared out the window of the monorail transport. Right now her head felt as though it were a big ball of gas. Her gut felt like a feather swirling in an empty void. The world seemed to be moving in slow motion, but Sera didn’t care. She had gone numb.
Garret tried to speak to her several times during both the ride home and short walk to their apartment, but Sera offered him nothing more than a frigid facade. He made another attempt to speak to her when they entered their apartment, but she merely stared at him, then plopped down on the couch and turned on the TV viewer with the remote.
…a man was arrested today after he held his girlfriend hostage for nearly four hours and then shot and killed her. Another man, who bystanders said, was having an affair with the woman, attempted to rescue her but was shot twice in the head as he tried to enter the house. He died at the scene. The gunman, identified as…
Sera stared blankly at the screen…for hours.
Life was so much more civilized on Protogio…
She was only half aware that Garret brought her food, stroked her hair to give her comfort, and covered her with a blanket. She supposed he wasn’t so bad for someone who suddenly felt like a stranger to her.
Sera threw off the covering and went to the bathroom. She bent over the toilet and vomited. When she was through, she pulled herself up to the sink and leaned heavily on it. She turned on the cold water, rinsed her mouth and wiped the sweat from her brow with a washcloth. She studied her face in the mirror. Gold eyes reflected against gold eyes. They weren’t always that color. Sera woke up one morning when she was about eight years old and started screaming when she saw herself. Her dark brown eyes had turned to a honey shade of gold.
Was it a coincidence that it happened twelve years ago…the last time the POSSUM…
Garret had teased her relentless…
The thought faded as Sera blinked at her image and bent forward for a closer look.
It couldn’t be.
Sera stormed from the bathroom and stalked across the living room to a desk on the other side. She opened a cabinet door and began thumbing through her collection of bittie discs, BDs, as they were called because of their small one-inch by one-inch size. When Sera located the one she wanted, she slipped it into the slot on the note pad computer that was sitting on top of the desk.
"Scan BD."
The computer began booting a series of photographs, Sera’s personal photo album, until the snapshot she was searching for appeared.
"Stop…enlarge…edit mode."
It was her academy graduation picture.
"What are you doing, Sera?" Garret strode up beside her and crossed his arms.
Sera ignored him and kept working, touching the stylus to the areas she wanted to alter. She angled her jaw line and nose, but just a touch, not enough to change her characteristic features. She erased her military hat and added light brown, wavy hair. When Sera darkened the honey golden eyes in the portrait to a dark brown, she sat back and shuddered. Then, she snickered a few times before giving way to a tremulous, bemused chuckle.
Sera had projected her own likeness into her illusion of Mekal. In fact, her feminine face, only slightly modified, was nearly identical to his masculine form.
Garret examined the image Sera had composed on the screen. "Who is that?"
"Don’t you see?" she tittered, pointing at the screen. "It’s my phantom brother!"
Her expression grew angry as she narrowed her eyes at Garret. "But then again, isn’t that who you are?"
She stared at him for several seconds before she burst into disconcerted, hysterical laughter.
"You need to get a hold of yourself, Sera!" He grabbed Sera and shook her.
"I’m freakin’ cracking up, Garret! You gotta problem with that?" She swiped a tear from the corner of her eye.
…In other news from around the world, an earthquake registering at one point zero, touched the area of Giza last night. No one was hurt and there was no damage to the ancient pyramids …
Sera’s head snapped back at the mention of the pyramids. Her hysteria was immediately sobered. She and Garret looked at the TV viewer and listened intently to the commentary.
…witnesses claim the ground shook for nearly thirty seconds before it was over. A bizarre buzzing sound was recorded by tourists in the area and visitors claim that the sound could be heard for nearly eight hours prior to the earthquake. It disappeared following the quake. Seismologists could not explain…
Sera’s astonished expression fixed on Garret. Incredibly, he smiled at her. There was a wicked glimmer in his eyes. Her respiration suddenly increased to unbreathable proportions and Sera began choking on her own air.
Garret helped Sera to sit on the couch and cupped her hands over her mouth.
"Easy, Sera. Breath slow," he soothed until her panicked gulps eased. "We need to discuss what happened, Sera."
Sera nodded and relaxed a bit. She really did need to talk about it, and so, she opened her mouth and started to speak. She told Garret about the Magistrate Council and the Challenges. She described the beauty of the castle, and of the crukis bulbs. She talked about the culture, their herbal medicines and the monetary value of the gemstones. She even detailed the shatter arrows used by the Nyx warriors, and how she first thought their blasts were from her exploding spaceship.
When Sera expressed her love for Jerad with poignant emotion, she noticed that Garret clenched the arms of his chair forcefully and his face reddened with anger.
She purposefully omitted the spectrocorde and who the citizens thought she was. She was therefore caught unaware when Garret asked her what she knew about the Edict and pressured her for information about the Key to Orion’s belt. She regained her composure quickly, however.
"I know nothing about that." Sera watched his lips thin and nostrils flare in irritation to her statement.
Garret was a bit too interested and a tad overanxious about their conjoined dream. It would have been more relevant for him to ask her about the data they were given to communicate to each other while they were linked. It pained her to distrust the only person she ever knew as family, but an inner warning told her it would be best to reveal nothing more to him. Sera might be young, but she was not stupid.
"Why did you capture Jerad?"
"He is my enemy."
"He isn’t my enemy."
"How was I to know that?"
"Would it have made a difference?"
"Probably not."
Something in the way Garret responded sent an eerie chill up Sera’s spine. She had the foreboding sense to be weary of him. He lied to her about their kinship, but for what reason, she could not even guess.
If he wasn’t her brother, than who the hell was he?
Why was she with him?
Sera shook her head. Garret emerged from the POSSUM unscathed, while she was coming apart at the seams.
"I’m going to bed. Goodnight Garret."
Chapter Twenty-six
…there within this melding, the mystery of the Key will be revealed…
Sera slumped against the ceramic tile wall as the steaming water doused her head and body. It was three-thirty in the morning. She spent much of the night rolling from one side of her bed to the other. Each time she was about to fall asleep, she would see Jerad’s face, his image would jolt against her shaky slumber and she would awaken. Surrendering to a certainty that she was not going to get any rest, Sera slid out of bed and decided to take a shower.
Sera pressed her hands against the shower stall and dropped her head, allowing the steaming water to drench her hair and slide along her back. But nothing, it seemed was going to sooth her tension. She felt like she was being pulled apart by two worlds. It was like being trapped in a bipolar field with invisible tentacles seeking her from every direction, a force so compelling and so disturbing she would have preferred to have her eyelashes plucked out.
A very old cliché--Stop the world I want to get off--came
to her mind, but Sera just wished she could jump onto one world and stay there.
In whatever level of consciousness she presently existed, her wits were definitely on overload. In the last forty-eight hours her life had turned a full circle. She entered a reality called Protogio dazed and nearly vomiting, she knew nothing about her life or where she belonged. Now she was back in another reality losing her mind and retching her guts out. She had a brother she couldn’t recall, who she then remembered, who was now not her brother.
And when she considered all she had gained and lost with Jerad…
Sera released a sob. It was unbearable to think about.
Her life was so much simpler when Garret was running it.
The news report rattled her, contributing to her already disheveled nerves. It was too much of coincidence for her to think there was no connection. It was crazy to think…
She had to believe.
But Sera needed answers. She got dressed and headed for the lab, hoping to find something, anything that would put the pieces of the puzzle together.
It was a tepid evening, so Sera opted for the half-hour walk it would take to reach the C.O.R.E building. It might help to clear her thoughts. She inhaled deeply taking comfort in the peacefulness of the dark early morning. Orion’s constellation was clearly visible in the cloudless sky. Sera stopped briefly to watch it move in its clockwise path through heavens.
The lab was deserted, not surprising at four-thirty in the morning. In a few hours the team would begin anew, analyzing the information gathered and recalibrating the equipment for Sera and Garret’s planned, second trip into dreamland. The thought of submitting to another dream linking made Sera ill, but if that was where her answers could be found she would do it. This time however, she would go armed with information that might be useful on the other side. Sera flicked on the lights and sat down in front of the data processor.
"Voice mode."
The mainframe hummed to life.
"Scan, POSSUM research, year two-thousand and fifty-one." She would start in the beginning, with the earlier project conducted twelve years ago. She read the documentation and the commentary on the dream sequencing that emerged during their linking. First Lieutenant Thomas Ormond and Captain Clay Jackson successfully passed the information they were given, but it was their experience on Protogio that interested Sera. There was very little detail provided, however. Other than the bizarre incident that left the lieutenant dead, the contrived dream was considered irrelevant to the mission of the project.
The data briefly mentioned the Edict and there was even a minor reference to the spectrocorde, grouped in their descriptions of the artwork they found there. A vague description of the Tenth Zone was given, and the citizens who dwelled there were also mentioned, referring to some of them by name. She read about the couple, Shegarth and his wife Corinne, and of the boy called Jerad, who followed them relentlessly, attempting to learn their language. It was Jerad who called Captain Jackson, Argilos. Interpreted from Greek to English, it translated as the modeling dough used for sculpting, not a person’s name. Sera smiled as she pictured her husband as a curious young boy.
My husband. Sera flinched. She still thought of him that way.
Sera leaned back in her chair and sighed. She read this documentation before and she could accept that they were embedded somewhere in her subconscious. They could have contributed to their mental processings while linked. The only difference was that Sera had moved the dream forward in time. She found that piece of information quite puzzling. On Sera’s Protogio, there were no images confusing its past with its present. It was as if life had continued in an organized, purposeful manner. She didn’t think that even the most stalwart and imaginative mind could have pulled that one off.
Sera turned her attention to the KNOE. She was curious to view the data on the numerous physical transformations that occurred to her body while she was sleep induced. There was no doubt that things had happened to her. She had the scars to prove it.
"Play, biological information, Second Lieutenant Sera Moros."
The three-dimensional scan of Sera’s body appeared on the KNOE. Various readouts began flashing around the perimeter.
"Voice presentation."
Respirations, twelve per minute… pulse, sixty-two… a drone female voice reverberated.
Inducing R.E.M. sleep.
The figure on the screen began to rotate, pausing to outline the various areas of her skin, skeleton and internal organs. The KNOE reviewed her injuries, including the concussion to her head.
She watched as the infliction healed within minutes. The same thing occurred to the slash under her ribs and the piercings in her hand. They all healed with miraculous swiftness, leaving only remnants as proof that they occurred.
Sera leaned back in her chair and yawned. She wasn’t finding any useful information from what she was seeing
New human life form…
Sera bolted upright. "Stop!"
The KNOE halted.
Sera leaned toward the screen. "Enhance."
The screen zoomed in to focus on her lower belly
"Microscopic level and replay."
Sera intently watched the screen as a minuscule cell appeared in the wall of her womb. It divided into two cells and those cells divided. The process continued until a curved form took shape. A tiny dot appeared within it and began pulsating--a heart.
A primitive brain and skeleton formed, and little arm buds burst from the body.
End of data…
Sera stared at the image for several seconds, stunned by what she was seeing.
Sera was…pregnant?
"Age of fetus," she choked out.
Data is conflicting…
"Maturation age of fetus," Sera re-worded.
Physical maturation is at six point five weeks, fifteen hours, thirty-six minutes…
"Stop. Time of conception."
Her child was conceived forty-five minutes into the experiment.
A phantom child created in the depths of her own mind, by a phantom lover?
I don’t think so.
"Did someone..." Sera gasped and frantically checked the logs.
No.
There were at least three people on duty at all times, plus the lab had visual monitors. No one would have dared touch her. Besides that, the fetus was well over a month old.
"There is no way in hell I impregnated myself." Sera did some quick calculations to correlate her sleep time to her time on Protogio, and found that her child was conceived near the first time she and Jerad were together.
I’m having your baby, Jerad. Can you hear me? Sera spoke in Greek. She placed a hand on her lower belly and smiled. Her stomach cramped painfully, but her heart was flying.
Sera pulled her palm pad from her pocket and plugged it into a slot in the KNOE. She hit download and recorded the entire course of her baby’s short little life.
...This bond will be a joining so seamless it will cross the boundaries of the heavens…
It was eight a.m. Sera was running on little sleep but she was driven by a determination so fierce nothing was going to stop her from figuring it out. She removed her palm pad from the computer, hit the phone button on it and entered a number.
"Jupiter Air Force Base, Personnel Services, Sergeant Roberts speaking, how may I help you?" A voice on the other end spoke.
"Jen?"
"Sera? Hey! How’s it going?"
"Oh just dandy. This project is keeping me busy."
"You mean that top secret, nobody can know about it, not even your best friend it’s so highly classified, project?"
Sera chuckled. Jennifer was her best friend, and one of the few that Garret allowed her to have. They met at a base picnic when Sera first arrived in Jupiter, and they immediately liked each other.
"Listen Jen, I need a favor."
"Anything for you, hon."
"I need information on a Captain Clay Jackson. He worked at the C.O.R.E twelve
years ago."
While Sera waited for the information, she stared at her child’s image, watched its gentle floating motions within the safety of her womb. Sera couldn’t believe it. She was going to have a baby. Did Garret know? Was that what he and Melissa were arguing about yesterday? Sera decided immediately that it had to be about something else. If Garret knew that she was pregnant, he would have told her.
Wouldn’t he?
"Okay, what do you want to know."
"Tell me what you’ve got."
"Well, let’s see. He left the C.O.R.E in two thousand fifty-one. He’s a Major now…stationed with the IASA…flying Mars transport shuttles…."
"Do you have and address or phone number?"
"Yep, sure do."
Sera entered the information into her palm pad.
"Gotta go, Sera. The big boss just walked in. Let’s do lunch."
"Sure, Jen. I’ll call you soon."
The line disconnected and Sera entered the number to Clay Jackson’s home. He answered on the second ring.
"Major Jackson, my name is Sera Moros, uh, Lieutenant Sera Moros. I am a Research Technician working on a project called the POSSUM. I was wondering if we could meet."
"I left that project twelve years ago."
"Please, it is important. I just…something has happened to me. I thought that you might be able to help me."
"No... No I don’t think so. I’m really not interested in the POSSUM anymore. Good day, Lieutenant."
"Please, no....Don’t hang up! Please, Argilos!"
"What did you call me?"
"Argilos."
"There was only one place that I was ever referred to as a lump of modeling material." He paused for a moment and Sera waited for him to continue, but he did not respond further.
"I...I…," Sera stammered over her words. What if he didn’t believe her? "I have been to the Third Corridor."
There was an endless silence on the other end of the phone. Sera steeled against the anxiety wracking her.
"They called me the Ptino asteri, sir."
The Third Corridor Page 27