The Awakening: Imortum

by JK Stone

  It was almost as if it had a rainbow’s worth of color-changing glitter strewn throughout it. He raised his eyes to Alise who nodded to him encouragingly, so he picked up his utensil, sliced a bite-sized portion, put it into his mouth and closed his eyes.

  The flavors crossing his taste buds were astounding, they were a rotation of the essences of different foods. Jason thought he had died and gone to heaven with the sensations coursing throughout his body. Nothing in his entire life had ever tasted so good. He opened his eyes what felt like a few minutes later and looked up at Alise who smiled and with a nod she encouraged him to eat more.

  Jason took another bite and closed his eyes once again to get a better feel for the tastes and textures crossing his tongue. This time it almost put him into a trance. He felt as though he could stay like that for an eternity and never want to do anything again but eat that amazing dish, and his entire body seemed to tingle with euphoria.

  As each flavor burst over his tongue, Jason felt an explosive sensation shoot out to the far reaches of his body, then it would slowly fade to have another blast over the same spot, sweet followed by savory then a different sweet followed by sour, and the pleasurable beacon like sensations seemed to last for hours on end.

  Jason could recognize a few of the flavors but the myriad flavors were too numerous to count. When the flavors beacon like sensations finally faded, he opened his eyes to take another bite and found Alise smiling at him.

  “Liked it, did you?” Alise asked with a grin.

  “It was amazing,” Jason looked down at his plate and saw it was gone. A bit disappointed he asked, “Did I eat it all? I only remember taking two bites.”

  “No, I had a bite, then I returned the rest to base materials. It is only good for a limited time before it loses its effectiveness. Well, we spent enough time eating. We should probably get ready for the mission.”

  Jason was puzzled and said, “I thought we were almost twelve hours out from the mission.”

  Alise smiled. “We were when we got here but that was six hours ago,” she stated.

  Jason looked at her skeptically. “Are you messing with me again?”

  “No, it is one of the side effects of the ambrose, which is what the Imortum called that meal.”

  “Ambrose wouldn’t be short for ambrosia would it?” Jason asked.

  Alise let out a booming laugh and said, “Yes actually, although that was the Lantins’ name for it. As far as I know the Lantins never quite perfected it though. Most of the ingredients are not indigenous to Earth, and it is extremely difficult to make manually. So, what they could have made would have been a cheap knock-off at best. Even making it by computer made it taste different from the last time I made it. It actually tasted better this time, probably because I could enjoy it with someone. The last time I made it, I ate it alone and the experience was just not the same.”

  Jason was intrigued and asked, “What are some of the other side effects?”

  Alise looked him up and down. “Well one of them you will have to take my word on. It has healing properties. Your eyes were almost completely red from the conjunctival hemorrhaging but now they are back to normal. Also, do you feel hungry anymore?”

  Jason thought about it and said, “Actually…no, I don’t.”

  “That is because one bite can sate any appetite and eating any more than that puts you into a euphoric state that can last for hours on end, as you just experienced. There are other rumored effects about it but I think they are myths, like eating it reverses the aging process, gives you the strength to move mountains and throw lightning bolts. It’s also supposed to increase the sexual drive and can transform a mortal into an immortal.

  “It is kind of a moot point with you because the bonding and chlorophyll procedure did some of that already. I think the rumors were started because the Imortum were immortal and everyone wanted to be like them. The main reason I wanted you to eat it was to see if it helped with your eyes, and it did. For some reason, our medical unit could not heal them.”

  “It must’ve been quite boring just watching me all zonked out over here. What did you do with your time?” Jason asked.

  “Actually, it was quite entertaining to watch the expressions crossing your face. I saw a few of those while we were making love. But I hope to see the others as well… I cannot have you wanting food more than you want me now can I?” Alise gave him a seductive wink.

  Jason looked Alise up and down as he stood and approached her. “The ambrose was amazing, but it’s nothing compared to how you make me feel.” He took her hand, raised it to his lips and placed a gentle kiss on her palm.

  “I know what you are thinking.” Alise raised a knowing brow. “But we have a job to do and I want to make sure nothing goes wrong. Besides, we need to get to Daregon before Justin’s ship arrives.”

  Jason nodded and agreed, “Okay, later then.”

  Reluctantly Jason transported them to the first floor where they spent the next few hours ironing out their plan.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Alise did not want to let Jason leave the ship to power down the ancient Imortum portal manually, and she tried repeatedly to convince him it would be safer to just shut the portal down remotely. Jason kept insisting he needed to go down but he didn’t know why. He reminded her that their ship had been knocked out of orbit by TDS 5, and that caused them to miss rescuing his great-grandfather, and he didn’t want to take any chances. Reluctantly she agreed but not without insisting on one concession. She made him agree that if anything was in the slightest bit wrong, she would transport him back and perform the shutdown her way. Jason agreed, knowing full well she was only being difficult out of concern for his well-being.

  *****

  Jason was in his time displacement suit and had just been transported down to Earth. He was in the highlands of Scotland and was standing a short distance from the ancient Imortum portal he’d repaired a week prior, at least in his time reference. The second he was on the surface, his mind had been assailed by pain and the sounds of thousands upon thousands of voices crying out in misery, which drove him to his knees. He had to stifle a groan at the enormity of it all. The misery lasted a good minute, and with a great deal of focus, he finally managed to push it to the back of his mind.

  *****

  Alise was monitoring Jason’s progress on Earth. He had a little over a minute before the ancient Imortum portal needed to be closed, and her nerves were on edge. She jumped when she heard Jerren’s frantic voice call out over the communications.

  “Jason! Can you hear me?” he said.

  Alise replied, “Jason is on Earth right now. What is the matter?”

  Jerren shouted. “Finally! TDS 5 changed course and is headed back to Earth. It’ll be there in one minute your time!”

  Alise immediately targeted Jason. “DAMMIT!” she cried out. “Jason, can you hear me? Jason!”

  “What’s wrong?” Jerren asked.

  “Something is blocking my communications and transport! I cannot warn Jason!” Alise looked down at the console and decided to launch a probe and scan forward to track TDS 5’s activity, but that system would not respond either.

  “What the hell is the matter with this ship? Jerren, can you get me a location on where TDS 5 will arrive in orbit?”

  A few seconds passed and Jerren replied, “TDS 5’s course shows a destination point four KK GEO almost on top of your current location.”

  Remembering what had happened in the attempt to save Jason’s great-grandfather, Alise decided to move TDS 1 out of the field bounce range of TDS 5’s engine and was about to activate the engine when the ship began moving. “What is going on? The damn ship just took off! Jason!” she shouted.

  *****

  Jason was waiting for the last two people to step onto the portal and transport to Antilles. He was out of phase and standing right beside the portal in order to deactivate it just after they left. The woman had a gun drawn on the man who was holding a remo
te control unit for the portal. The man had said something to the woman, and a moment later the portal flashed bright blue and with the sound of a gunshot they were gone.

  Jason wasted no time. He dropped the phase on his suit and was in regular time, then he keyed in the deactivation code on the panel he had accessed earlier, and a moment later the port pad shut down.

  Jason let out a sigh of relief, but that feeling was short-lived, however, because a moment later it felt as if every nerve in his body was tingling with a very pleasant shocking sensation. That feeling passed quickly and spinning around Jason saw a shimmering blur of a person pointing a weapon at him. He fired, and Jason expected to feel an intense burn or shocking Jolt, but all he experienced was an intensely pleasurable jolt similar to the one that just drew his attention.

  This time the sensation lasted a little longer, and Jason marveled at the versatility of the suit he was wearing that prevented him from being shocked or burnt. Peering down, Jason let out a groan, the suit must’ve taken the damage his body should’ve sustained because the location he was shot, now had holes melted through the suit.

  Jason stepped into a defensive stance ready to dodge the next blast since he figured what was left of the suit wouldn’t provide much more protection in its state. A moment later the blur on his assailant faded and he was in the same phase as Jason. The aggressor seemed to take in his situation and must have realized his energy weapon had little effect on Jason because he holstered his sidearm and drew a sinister looking pair of daggers.

  “Why are you after my family?” Jason called out.

  His assailant growled in an almost inhuman voice, “Master wants you all dead,” he said, then he slashed his daggers in a crisscross motion.

  With that said Jason realized this man was from the other TDS, but he wasn’t the commander. He considered drawing his sidearm and stunning the guy right there, but after everything this person had done to his family, Jason wanted a little payback.

  They began circling each other and the man thrust one of the daggers toward Jason’s head. Jason arm blocked that thrust and landed a firm blow to his assailant’s ribs, then spun out of range.

  With a grunt of pain, the assailant attempted to slash Jason with his left dagger, but Jason caught the man’s wrist, squeezed and gave it a twist, then brought his right forearm through the assailant’s elbow buckling it, and the dagger from that hand went flying. Pulling the man’s injured arm by the wrist, Jason pivoted and threw him to the ground a lot farther away than Jason expected.

  His assailant got to his feet, and with his left arm clutched into his abdomen he began swiping the blade in his right hand wildly as Jason approached for the next round.

  Settling back in his stance, Jason waited for the assailant to thrust his weapon straight at him again. When he saw the man step into his lunge, Jason arm blocked the thrust and spinning on the spot Jason hit him square in the back with a reverse roundhouse kick. The man dropped his second dagger as he flew several feet away and hit the ground again. Seeing the second dagger on the ground between them, Jason stepped over to the fallen dagger and kicked it out of reach.

  Now unarmed, his assailant made it back to his feet and began swinging wildly at him. Jason went round and round with him exchanging blows. His assailant managed to land a few wild punches, but they had little effect on him. Jason stepped into the assailant’s next punch and sank his fist deep into his opponent’s abdomen and then with a pivot, Jason spun and brought the man to the ground with a head and arm throw.

  Jason had a choke hold on the man and he was gasping for air, so Jason shouted, “Give it up, and I won’t kill you!”

  The next moment Jason felt as if his entire body went numb as an extreme jolt of energy coursed through him, and his assailant began convulsing. Within seconds the man went limp on the ground, and Jason loosened his hold and rolled him over to assess the man’s condition, but he was undoubtedly dead.

  Jason saw that the man had drawn his sidearm with his injured hand and shot Jason in the back with it.

  The energy from the man’s weapon had hit Jason and surged back into the assailant, killing him. Jason pulled the man’s hood off and took in his appearance. His face was a mess and Jason realized quickly that there was no way he could have done that much damage to the man’s face.

  Looking closer, Jason saw the wounds had been in the process of healing when he died. Jason wondered what he had been through to cause those injuries, and what if he was only attacking him to prevent being tortured further.

  The guy didn’t look good, the jolt must have electrocuted him. Jason considered getting him to TDS 1 to attempt to revive him, if only to find out who his master was, and Jason was about to call for Alise to transport the assailant to medical, but he didn’t get the chance, because with a disorienting flash Jason found that he was no longer on Earth.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It only took Jason a second to realize he was back aboard his ship, and shaking his head, he made his way to the control room.

  Jason could hear Alise crying and his heart ached as he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Alise turned to face him with tearstained eyes, then bolted into his arms. “How did you get back on the ship? Are you okay?” she managed to get out between breaths.

  Jason patted Alise on the back and said, “I am all right. I need you to transport a guy from the surface to medical though.”

  Alise shook her head and said, “I cannot. We are not even in Earth’s solar system anymore.”

  “What? I was just there,” Jason said.

  Alise seemed to regain herself and she said, “Right after you transported to the surface, Jerren called and informed me that TDS 5 was almost to Earth, so I tried to transport you up, and warn you, but the ship began malfunctioning, I lost control of it. I was thinking to ram TDS 5 with our ship when it appeared, but our ship took off for Daregon on its own.

  Jason’s nerves were frazzled but he gave a nervous smile and said, “Well at least we’re past the paradox now. I managed to deactivate the portal before the person from TDS 5 arrived.”

  “What?” Alise barked out.

  Jason told her about the attack on him and the condition of his assailant, then Alise called out, “Jerren, can you hear me yet?”

  A second later Jerren’s distorted voice sounded from Jason’s life monitor. “Finally! Yes, are you guys okay?”

  Alise replied, “Yes, what is the status of TDS 5?”

  Jerren sounded relieved as he said, “I was worried after I told you about TDS 5. My communications cut out again. I went back to monitoring TDS 5’s display wall. When it got to Earth, someone transported to the surface, and right after that, I disabled the ship.”

  “How did you do that? Do you have control of his ship?” Jason asked.

  Jerren’s voice had a slight chuckle to it as he said, “No, but what I could do was force a system-wide diagnostic that shut down most of TDS 5’s ancillary functions and dropped it out of phase. Do you remember when my car’s computer went bad? Well, I did to TDS 5 what my car did to me. TDS 5 is in limping-home mode until the diagnostic completes. Which should be another two minutes in your time.”

  Jason asked Alise, “Can we make it back to Earth in two minutes?”

  Alise shook her head. “No, even if I could turn the ship around we are too far away and I am still locked out.”

  Jason closed his eyes a moment, then opening them he said, “I can control the ship. I just changed course.”

  Jason had just gotten those words out when Inola’s voice sounded in his head, saying only two words.

  No! Daregon.

  Jason looked at Alise painfully and whispered, “Well I think I know who blocked your control of the ship.” He pointed to his head and mouthed, “Inola.”

  Looking concerned Alise nodded.

  With a ringing in his head, Jason reset the course for Daregon. A thought came to him and hoping Inola would not shout again, he asked, “Jerren can
you do that again?”

  There was an extended silence, and Jason was about to ask his question again when Jerren responded. “No, it looks like the major diagnostic program can only be run every ten thousand linear years. There’s a countdown going now. I think the only reason I could activate it was that it was way overdue, or possibly because of the alarms that activated for TDS 5 when Justin’s ship started up. That command was not on the screen before.”

  Jason sighed and said, “Well that’s too bad. I was thinking it might be a way to confront the commander of TDS 5 and force him to leave us alone. The guy I fought on Earth was only his lackey.”

  “Huh. That’s odd, TDS 5’s diagnostic just completed and the ship took off. I was going to see where it was headed, but the display went blank,” Jerren said, sounding a little dejected, then he added, “I’m sorry, Jason, but that bullet’s been shot, at least for the next ten thousand years. Better luck next time. I bet that scared the shit out of him though, just popping out of phase and shutting down like that. Could you open the archway? I think I’ve learned all I can from here at the moment. It was like pulling teeth. Most requests ended with not authorized to perform that task… Actually, I was surprised I could start the diagnostic.”

  Jason looked Alise over from head to toe, and said, “I need ten to fifteen minutes. Can you wait that long?”

  Alise was about to speak, but Jason held a finger to her lips.

  Jerren replied, “That sounds good to me. Now that the life monitor seems to be working again, I’ll check up on Justin. See you in a few.” And with that, the communications closed.

  “Why did you need ten minutes?” Alise asked. “The room is right there.”

  Jason got a firm grasp around Alise’s waist and pulled her to him. “That gives us almost two hours to ourselves and if you hadn’t noticed, the rumor about Ambrose increasing sexual drive is not unfounded. I’ve been fighting this erection for hours now.” He transported them to the bedroom, minus their clothing.