“Who says she wasn’t doing fine?”
Trey showed his brother a datapad, its shiny surface catching the room’s harsh light. “I tracked what she’d been doing and mostly, she’d been in hiding. She changed her last name and moved with her sister to a planet her father never influenced. You truly believe she could live a normal life, even after Jacin’s death? How could she ever tell anyone who she really is? She would have to hide her gifts, always afraid they might come out, and someone would connect her to her father. No, I can’t believe she would want that kind of life.”
Dru hesitated, his stomach uneasy. “Shouldn’t she choose?”
“She will,” Trey reassured. “I told you, the memory effects are only temporary. I want her to see what life could be like, free to be herself, without judgment, without running, without fear. Then I’ll restore her memories and she can decide what she wants to do.”
“And if she happens to want to lead what’s left of the Aleet Army, you wouldn’t have any objections?” Dru asked, haughty.
“If she decides to pursue a cause like her father’s, I would be honored to serve her. You know how much potential he had. We could give his daughter the chance he never had, a second chance for her to have her own life.”
A second chance… Dru’s thoughts churned, desperately searching for a way to rationalize the erasure of Daith’s memories. His only defense stemmed from Trey showing him she’d been wasting her gifts. With others hunting her, she could never live up to her full potential.
“I’ll need to know what story you’ve told her.” He ignored the hard knot of unease in his stomach.
Trey grinned. “I knew I could count on you, Brother. You will receive a full report soon.”
Chapter 8
Daith woke the next morning in darkness. She’d been dreaming again—the same dream at first. Swirling dust, an unbearable heat. Someone grabbing her. Only this time the images shifted. She’d stood in front of the computer console in the meeting room and had the password to gain access, but her fingers wouldn’t push in the correct sequence. Alarms blared. She knew she could finally find out who she was if she could only get access to the computer….
Daith rubbed her eyes as the remnants of her unsatisfying sleep slid away. She blinked until she registered her surroundings.
A space ship docked at a space station.
Her pulse quickened, and a desperate need to see prickled across her in a chilled wave.
“Lights. Computer, lights.”
The room’s lights faded up, bathing her in harsh pools of bright white. She was still in the same room, in the same bed.
Metallic. Cold.
Foreign.
And yet somehow she felt comforted. The familiar room reassured her. Her fear revolved around finding herself somewhere she didn’t know, lost once again.
Frustration rolled through her. Would she always feel this way? Would she wake every morning terrified until the lights came on, afraid she wouldn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten there?
Daith sat up, thoughts pulsing through her mind. Her dream remained with her, reminding her she didn’t know who she was, that she might never know. She stood and rubbed her hands against each other, on her thighs, across her arms. She felt uncomfortable in her own skin, stuck inside a foreign body, a foreign room. She was terrified, alone. Trapped with nothing but her own thoughts.
The room, though moments ago a refreshing sight, filled her with fear. How could she know what to do, how to act, what to think, when she couldn’t even trust herself? The gray walls seemed to bend toward her, pushing at her from all sides, restricting, confining.
Daith hopped into her jumpsuit and bolted out the door, dashing down a set of nearby stairs.
She strode down the long, dim corridor with no destination. Her bare feet padded quietly, an unfitting contrast to the pounding of her heart. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe, imagining the stale, recycled air around her. What if something went wrong? What if an air seal broke?
Full-blown panic threatened to engulf her. She needed to see someone else, to know she wasn’t alone, but the hallways remained void of life.
Daith paused when she reached a T-intersection. Straight ahead appeared the same as behind, but her left opened into a widened hallway, with two huge, white doors on either side of each wall. She didn’t know where she was. Would she be able to find her way back to her quarters? Where was everyone?
Daith approached the first of the doors, hoping someone might be inside. Hand poised to knock, a soft chime startled her. The noise came from an access panel set in the wall next to the door. A disembodied female voice spoke.
“Welcome to simulation room one.”
Silence.
“Um—hello?” Daith said.
“Welcome to simulation room one,” the voice repeated. “Please select a program.”
“Program? Program for what?”
A moment of silence. “Welcome to simulation room one. Please select a program.”
A simulation room? “What types of programs are there?” she asked.
The access panel next to her lit up.
“Academics, Exercise, Leisure, Sports, Training, Custom.” Daith scrolled down and selected ‘Exercise.’ A new list emerged, longer than the first. “Aerobics, Acrobatics, Calisthenics…” Daith trailed off. She clicked on ‘Aerobics’ and a third list appeared. “Another list? Are you serious?”
The computer responded to her rhetorical question. “Program not recognized. Please restate program request.”
Daith let out a sigh. Her body itched with anxious energy. She needed to expel her unease and calming down didn’t seem to be an option. “How about jogging track?”
“Color scheme preference?”
Daith rubbed her face. “I don’t care.”
“Track length?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Location preference?”
Bitterness seeped into her response. “Listen, I don’t know. I don’t remember anywhere so how can I have a preference?”
“Program not recognized. Please restate—”
“Sorry. I get it,” Daith interrupted. “No location preference.”
“Stock parameters for color scheme, length, and location have been recorded. Program installation will take two point four standard minutes. Do you wish to proceed?”
“Yeah.”
“Please enter when ready.”
The large door opened and Daith stepped into a large, white, empty room. The sound of rushing air signaled the door closing and her breath caught in her throat.
The room melted.
The white walls oozed like liquid, wet and slick. Swatches of blue color ran down the sides of the walls, like the ship’s blood. The walls filled with blue and Daith noticed the same thing happened to the floor, except the surface filled with gray, surrounded by a white track. Thick, lighter blue squares appeared in the center of the floor—stretching mats for warm-ups.
Daith stood in awe. “Computer?” she whispered.
The soft chimes rang.
“Please select a program.”
Daith cleared her throat. “I would like to pick a color scheme preference.”
Silence.
“Um, I would like red walls and a black track.”
“New parameters have been set. Program installation will take one point two standard minutes.”
The chimes rang again—the walls bled red and the floor swelled with pools of ink.
Daith still just stood there. “This is crazy. I must be dreaming.” She took a seat on one of the mats in the center, soft, yet firm. She had no idea how this could be possible.
The room astounded her. She could wish herself anywhere. But where? She didn’t know any place but here. As soon as she knew her home planet, she would come here to see it.
Chimes rang. Startled, she glanced around, but saw no one. Opening her mouth to ask the computer what the chimes meant, she snapped it closed whe
n her surroundings changed.
The red walls crumpled and bunched into shapes like beige rocks. Shrubs and bushes pushed through the floor at her feet. The mats turned fluid and dissolved back into the floor while the black track changed into a long, dirt path—its smooth surface replaced by tiny granules of dirt and rock. The far wall pushed back to reveal the path’s destination. Disorientation hit her as the room expanded.
The dirt path led through a small copse of trees straight to the edge of a cliff. Daith stood and cautiously advanced to the lip. She thought she’d hit the wall, but she never reached it. Before her lay a huge, green pasture. On her right, a large waterfall cascaded down the side of the cliff, beginning a long, sparkling river that cut straight through the field. Her left revealed thousands of flowers and trees, showing a mix of greens, pinks, and blues. Their sweet, airy scent filled her nose. Daith watched small rainbows appear through each drop of water from the raging waterfall. Everything seemed so real. She didn’t understand it, but she felt like she’d been transported to an actual place.
Had the computer read her mind? Had it somehow created her home? Is this where she’d lived?
Lost in the moment, Daith didn’t register anyone behind her until she felt a hand on her shoulder. Surprised, she turned and shrieked, instinctively striking the figure.
Daith put her hand to her mouth in horror. Commander Xiven stood there, hand on his nose, and peered at her through watery eyes.
“I’m so sorry!”
Xiven waved his free hand in dismissal. “It’s my fault for barging in without notice. The system wasn’t locked so I thought someone had left a program running.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine. Remind me to show you how to lock off the system.” Xiven wiggled his nose, wincing. “You’ve got some reflexes.”
“I didn’t know I had them.” Daith paused, turning back toward the view. “Commander Xiven, what—”
“Call me Trey. Please.”
“Okay, Trey.” She turned her attention back to the scene. “What is this place?”
“This is my home world, Sintaur. It’s one of the smaller planets in the Fracc system.”
Daith watched jewel-toned flying creatures flit through the waterfall, their four sets of wings catching and tipping the droplets into the mouths of large, yellow, plants below. “It’s beautiful.”
“I created this program a few years ago to preserve my memory of it. Sintaur’s landscape has changed considerably.”
“What do you mean?”
He stepped out next to her. The trees hummed with a low vibration—their black and gold leaves quivering in the sunlight. “This was my planet before civil war destroyed it.” Trey reached up and rubbed one of the golden leaves between his fingers. When he released it, the residual marks turned a shade of russet.
“It didn’t happen all at once,” he continued, his gaze overlooking the cliff. “First, soldiers patrolled the streets. A curfew for citizens went into effect. Then non-native species were forced from their homes. The Manach and Grassuwerian families, my mother, brother, and I lived with, were kicked out of our building.”
While Trey spoke, Daith could envision the episode—doors of houses burst open, civilians pulled from their homes, the streets littered with bodies of those who wouldn’t cooperate. Though she didn’t know anything about Sintaur, she could picture the landscape in her head, as if there. Tears clouded her vision.
“Later in the year,” Trey went on, “the government passed a law requiring civilians to open up their homes. Give supplies to any soldier. We offered what we could, but eventually we ran out.” His face went blank.
“They dragged my mother outside to ‘punish’ her,” he continued. “My punishment entailed listening. My father was dead and with my mother now—gone—my brother and I were taken and placed in separate family care. The actual combat started when I was sixteen. I was ‘recruited’ to fight.”
Once again Daith could see what Trey spoke of—distant sounds of gunfire, a sickness released by the enemy that decimated the camps, leaving so many scar-marked bodies in the fields the soldiers were forced to abandon them. The images churned her stomach.
“I left the planet when the war ended four standard years later.”
Daith released a slow breath.
Trey’s head twitched at the sound and he snapped out of his memories. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I—” Trey peered into Daith’s tear-rimmed eyes. “It just came out.” Trey’s face flushed. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your use of the simulation room.”
“It’s okay,” she said, brushing roughly at the wetness. She wanted to say she didn’t mind the company, but he’d already turned his back to her.
As he left he told the computer to restore the image of the circular track. The beautiful scene vanished. He hadn’t even shown her how to lock off the program.
What was that about? Daith couldn’t find an answer. Here was a man who seemed in control of everything and he’d told her his life story.
I’m glad he’s not lying to me anymore.
The thought came easily. When he’d spoken to her before about her situation, she’d felt uneasy, with a knotted stomach. But this time it felt different. Like a wave had come off of him and pulsed through her.
She brushed away the notion.
“I’m just imagining things.”
*
Trey sat down behind his desk and smacked himself across the face. The noise echoed in the empty room.
“What is the matter with you?” he asked himself. “Telling your life story to some girl you don’t even know? Quit being soft. Softness is weakness. Attachment is weakness.” He slammed his fists on the table, bruising the sides of his wrists. “Each time you feel yourself losing control remind yourself of what happened to Jacin. He went soft, weak, and look where he ended up. You have too much riding on this plan for you to fail now. Suck it up!”
Trey kept his hands clenched into fists for a few more moments before unfurling them with a loud exhale. He reviewed the ship’s engine modifications to see how soon they would be ready to leave. His head pounded as he read the specs, the harsh light in his office piercing into his eyes.
Trey’s eyelids closed and he willed the pain to go away. He put his hands over his ears, resting his elbows on the desk, but the throbbing continued. Lowering his head, he crossed his arms and rested his forehead against the coolness of his skin. He didn’t have time to rest, but if he could at least get the headache to leave…
Trey was in a haze. He’d fallen asleep. But the dream of the moments before Jacin’s death didn’t happen. Like the last time. Some other part of Jacin’s life….
Jacin’s heart raced while he waited for the vidlink call to go through. He’d recently gotten out of the hospital after healing the student’s heart from his class. The episode had caused him to slip into unconsciousness and he’d awoken the following day under medical care. His wife had been there, worried sick, but Jacin hadn’t told her the truth about what happened. How could he? Elor would think he’d lost his sanity.
No, he needed to figure out what had happened first before he told anyone else.
Even with the house empty—Elor had taken the girls shopping—Jacin had still crammed himself inside their washroom, vidlink monitor perched precariously on his lap, the heat from its energy source warming his legs through his thin trousers.
A pale green, heavyset creature appeared on the viewscreen. Its bulbous eyes blinked so rapidly Jacin dizzied.
“Are you—?” Jacin had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when an excruciatingly loud buzz filled his skull. Teeth rattling, Jacin’s hands flew to his head. He screamed. As abruptly, the noise, and the pain, stopped.
“A thousand apologies!” the heavyset creature cried out. “It’s been so long since I’ve been contacted by a non-connecter I’m afraid I forgot to connect vocally.”
“It’s all right,” Jacin said, massaging his temples.
“I am delighted to receive your communications, Teacher Jacin Jaxx. Now, what can I do for you Teacher Jacin Jaxx?” the creature asked.
Jacin picked up on the repeated use of his name, which he knew held a lot of importance. “Well, Connected Counselor Imah of Tela,” Jacin said, “During my research for a history class, I came across a study on a telepath. The study claimed the subject had healed another using telepathy. Since your planet is known for teaching telepaths, I wondered if you know of any record of this?”
“Oh, yes, Teacher Jacin Jaxx. We can connect and heal or soothe anyone in distress. Our minds can link to the thoughts of others, understand their process, and offer support and relief.”
Jacin corrected himself. “I’m sorry Counselor, I meant physical healing.”
Counselor Imah seemed to think about the concept before he spoke. “Physical healing through the connected use of the mind is not possible. The mind is not able to make the jump between energy wavelengths and physical change. I’m afraid the information you uncovered is false.”
Jacin thanked the Counselor for his time and disconnected the call. His fingers trembled as he set the vidlink machine aside. Telepathy was uncommon in the Eomix galaxy, and most who possessed the talent originated from the planet Tela—or were sent there for training. Jacin thought for certain if anyone could answer his questions about how he’d been able to heal his student, it would be someone from Tela.
Except Counselor Imah said that type of energy transfer wasn’t possible.
But Jacin knew the energy shift could happen. He’d done the process with the girl in the class, when he’d healed her heart….
Trey snapped awake, his arm sporting a large, circular red mark which he assumed matched one on his forehead. The dream had been vivid—like a memory—like the one where Jacin saved the girl. But why? He’d only ever seen the memory right before Jacin’s death. Why was he seeing these earlier images now?
Eomix Galaxy Books: Illusion Page 5