***
Jackson Fox hung up the phone. It took a lot of bargaining, but the Americans finally agreed to let him keep Emmy and Charlie on the project. The only concession he made was in agreeing to allow Mike to replace Emmy in the practical trials.
He switched on his laptop and brought up the readouts from the lab. He knew what his granddaughter was up to and it pleased him, though he would not let her know that. When he was growing up he had to fight for everything, even his education. She had it easy. Not only did she attend the finest academic establishments in the country, she also benefitted from the encouragement of nothing less than a genius from the day she was born. It would do her good to have to struggle for a change. Without his forced opposition, she would lack the necessary spirit to truly achieve greatness.
The only concern he harboured was with her motives for choosing to apply the science in the way that she had. Space exploration was a noble field, but he feared she was searching for something a little more terrestrial than alien life. He stood by his theory that the encounter she described on the moon was most likely a fellow astral traveller. The professor was not a believer in new age philosophy. Whilst it was perhaps possible for one to achieve an altered state of consciousness through meditation, only technology could provide that final push necessary to send one soaring among the stars. As for the alternative; well, the dead were precisely that; dead. If it were any other way, Jackson Fox would have a hell of a lot of explaining to do; especially to his granddaughter.
***
Lucy cringed when she saw the two men approach. The barmaid had earlier been over and delivered a drink, which she told her was from the two men at the bar. She thought back to her awkwardness in Coober Pedy and how Anna had given her confidence. She wished Anna was with her then to help her deal with those two. In fact, if Anna were there, they would most likely give the men the brush off from the start. As it was, she simply let them sit down opposite her.
‘Hi there,’ said one of the men, who sounded American and came across as smug. He had the type of face that would not be out of place on a daytime soap opera. ‘My name’s Mike and this is my bud; Brad.’
‘Lucy,’ she succinctly replied.
‘Are you alone?’
She quickly glanced to her father, whom she had placed on the table. It was unlikely to be considered normal behaviour to be taking the ashes of a deceased loved one out for a drink. Rather than suffer the embarrassment of trying to explain herself, she tried her best not to draw attention to the urn.
‘My car broke down and I got stranded here. Hopefully, I will be on my way by morning.’
‘Where you headed?’
‘I haven’t decided yet. Once I get to Alice, I’ll start to plan out the rest of my trip. There’s plenty to see; King’s Canyon, Uluru. I’ve never been this far north before and I may even carry on to Darwin.’
She was babbling. Why had she given them so much information? She was saved from embarrassing herself further when the barmaid came over with another tray of drinks.
‘These are from Ned and the boys over in the corner. They also got one for your new lady friend. You guys have made quite an impression tonight.’
Mindy placed the three drinks on the table and then went back to tend the bar.
‘You were saying,’ urged Mike.
‘Er, yes,’ replied Lucy. ‘I’m going to Alice Springs.’
This time she refrained from disclosing her wider itinerary.
‘Alice Springs; we actually work not too far from there. Although you probably already guessed that we’re from out of town. We came in last night and are staying up at the observatory.’
Lucy wondered what the odds were that she had crossed path with these two before.
‘You arrived here yesterday. What car were you driving?’
Mike looked at Bradley to see if his friend thought the question to be odd as well.
‘We have a company car. It’s actually pretty cool; a jet black Hummer with tinted windows. It’s a real monster; it could run any other car off the road. Being a city girl, you’d love it.’
‘What makes you think I’m from a city?’
‘Why else would you come to the country for a holiday?’
It was a fair observation. However, he was wrong to assume that she would love his Hummer. She was more familiar with the vehicle than he could have known. At least now she knew exactly who to blame for her predicament. Whilst they talked, the barmaid returned with a bowl of fries.
‘These are compliments of the house. I thought you folks may be a little hungry,’ said Mindy.
The food was greasy and just the thought of it polluting her digestive tract was enough to sate Lucy’s hunger. The men did not seem too concerned about their cholesterol levels and quickly dived in. They picked up the chips two and even three at a time before stuffing them into their mouths.
‘I think this needs a little seasoning,’ said Mike, reaching out to pick up a salt cellar.
His fingers brushed past the urn. When he replaced the salt his hand actually hovered over the receptacle containing Lucy’s father’s ashes.
‘What’s in here?’
Lucy reached out to snatch it away from his grasp, but her fingers slipped, causing her to tip the urn over. The lid came off and rolled across the table until it came to rest against the side of the bowl containing the fries. A small mound of fine ash spilled over the rim and rested on the tabletop like a cigarette stain.
‘Holy shit!’ shouted Bradley, unable to hide his obvious amusement with the situation.
Mike tried to pick up the urn and put things right, but Lucy had already had enough.
‘Just leave it,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough?’
She opened up her purse and took out a credit card, which she used to brush the spilt ashes onto the edge of the table and then back into the receptacle. Once the damage was reversed, she asked the men to leave. As she did so she noticed a familiar face had entered the bar and he was just in time to overhear the end of her conversation.
‘Is there a problem here?’
The question was addressed to Lucy, but Lucas had his gaze fixed firmly on the two Americans. Seeing his badge, they were quick to play down any wrong doing, whether intentional or not.
‘No, sir,’ replied Mike.
Lucas ignored him.
‘I was asking the lady.’
‘It’s okay, officer,’ she told him. ‘These gentlemen were just leaving.’
The pair removed their glasses from the table and hurriedly retreated back to the bar. They had been in far worse scrapes when trying to pick up women and would laugh about what had happened later. Lucy, of course, could find no humour whatsoever in the situation. She was beat and wanted nothing more than to go to bed; her bed. The only problem was that her bed was thousands of kilometres away.
‘What were those two after?’ asked Lucas.
Lucy blushed.
‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘Well, in that case, I shouldn’t be too hard on them. They’re obviously men of taste.’
This time she smiled. She enjoyed the compliment and coming from Lucas she could trust that it was genuine.
‘It’s a shame you weren’t around the first time I ran into that pair yesterday.’
Lucas was confused.
‘They only arrived in town last night and I brought you in this morning. How could you have met...’ His voice trailed off as realisation dawned. ‘The big black Hummer. It’s parked just across the street. I cannot believe I did not think of that sooner.’
‘It’s okay. Things happen for a reason. At least, that’s what dad always used to say. If those two had been more courteous drivers, I wouldn’t be here now, would I?’
‘I could still arrest them if you want me to.’
‘That won’t be necessary. I’ll be back on my way tomorrow and I’ve enjoyed my day here. It’s good to know that town’s like this still exist.’
‘O
kay, but if you change your mind, let me know.’
She left Lucas and crossed along the bar on her way to the stairs when she encountered yet another familiar face. This really was a tiny town. At least the mechanic was not in the bar, although after the state she had seen him in earlier, it did not necessarily mean that he would still be sober.
‘Hello, it’s Ned, isn’t it? The barmaid said that the drinks were from you. Thank you for that.’
‘It was my pleasure,’ slurred Ned. ‘Don’t forget to call by the shop before you leave. My kangaroo steaks are the best in Australia and I’ll be having another fresh batch delivered any day now.’
‘I look forward to it.’
She waved him goodbye and then made her way up the stairs to her room. It was the first time she had stayed in a “penthouse suite”. Unless she was ever to win the lottery, she expected it would also be the last.
***
Mike and Bradley staggered out of the pub. As the night progressed, they actually received back most of the drinks they had bought for the bar. People were queuing up to share a beer with the two Namby-Pamby’s from across the pond. This left them both extremely intoxicated.
Mike took out his car keys and tried to line them up with the lock. It required all of the concentration of a fairground side show. No matter how hard he tried, he could not quite get the two to meet.
‘I hope you aren’t thinking of driving that road hazard all the way to the observatory,’ said a voice from over his shoulder.
It was the cop from earlier. There is nothing worse than small town policemen with too much time on their hands.
‘Actually, I was just making sure that it was locked. I don’t want to come back in the morning and find some tramp has used my backseat as a toilet.’
‘There are no tramps in this town and you can take my word that your vehicle will be safe on these streets. Unless, of course, it has not been moved before nine tomorrow morning in which case it will get a parking ticket.’
‘You don’t have to worry about that, officer. I can guarantee that it will not be here when you come back in the morning.’
He waited for the cop to move on. When the policeman did not meet with his expectations, he and Bradley were forced to begin the long journey back to the observatory on foot. Every so often Mike would glance back over his shoulder, but each time the cop remained defiantly by the car. At the bottom of Main Street the pair came to an intersection. Neither was sure which turning to take.
‘What now?’ asked Bradley.
‘What do you think?’ replied Mike. ‘We flip a coin and go with it. If we don’t sight the observatory within an hour, we’ll know we made the wrong choice and can turn around.’
Bradley seemed uneasy with the idea.
‘I dunno, Mike. There are a lot of strange things out there. Last night I heard wolves howling. Maybe we should call a taxi.’
‘I don’t think they have taxis here and I know for sure they don’t have wolves. What the heck are you talking about saying you heard them howling last night?’
‘I hear them all the time. They had them back at the base too.’
‘That’s not wolves, you fool; they’re dingoes. They’re nothing more than wild dogs.’
‘I bet they still got a nasty bite.’
Mike shook his head, disdainfully. He knew it was the drink talking, but he still could not believe that his friend was being such a wuss.
‘I thought you did a tour of Iraq. There were a lot more nasties in that desert than a few stray pooches.’
‘Maybe there was, but I wouldn’t know because I was stoned the whole damn time. The only time I got to let off any rounds was at New Year.’
Mike laughed. He also had some fond memories of that war.
‘So let’s just wait. Give it an hour and we’ll be able to take the Hummer, no problem.’
The pair sat down cross-legged on the corner of the junction. Whilst they idly waited, a car pulled up alongside. Lucas wound down his window and called out to the drunken soldiers.
‘Get in.’
The Americans were not quite sure if it was an offer, an order or a threat.
‘Are we under arrest?’ asked Mike.
‘I am tempted,’ the policeman replied. ‘If I’m going to haul you guys back to the station, I figure it would be just as easy to take you to the observatory. The professor is a good friend of mine and I wouldn’t want him to suffer the embarrassment of his house guests having to spend a night in the cells. If you’re not quick, though, I may change my mind.’
The pair quickly got up off the ground and climbed into the back of Lucas’ squad car. They were smart enough to keep their mouths shut for the duration of the drive. When he reached the observatory, Lucas saw that a light was still on. The professor and his two young protégés often worked late into the night and he did not think they were waiting up solely for their visitors. He dropped the soldiers off at the door and then returned to town.
In the morning, he planned on coming back to ask his friend’s advice regarding the snake he caught. If it was not prying, he intended on finding out the story behind the Americans too.
Chapter 10
The world is a small place; particularly when one lives in Jackson’s Hill. A tiny town surrounded by a great big expanse of nothingness on every side. The observatory was able to take that nothingness and stretch it to infinity. It was this void where Emmy now found herself; thousands of miles away from her body, which lay in a state of perfect hibernation in the centre of the laboratory.
She dismissed the idea of taking her search into deep space. There were a hundred billion galaxies; each with a hundred billion stars. Even if she concentrated on the solar system it would be like sitting in the middle of a desert and painstakingly examining the nearest half a dozen grains of sand for the one she was looking for. Such an act was beyond futility. If she was to have any hope of success at all, she would have to stay close to the source. Planet Earth was the only rock in the universe known to contain life with one hundred percent certainty. This also meant it was the only place in the universe guaranteed to contain death. If she waited, they would come. How could it be any other way?
The whole world was spread out before her and she soon began to see that as part of her problem. It contained so much energy that hoping to spot and track an individual entity at this distance would be like searching for fireflies as they flew in front of the sun. She needed to be closer.
In an instant, her will took her through the atmosphere and below the clouds. Now she could make out a city in its entirety. So much life, but that was not what she was looking for. She needed to move closer still.
Now she was at street level. Living phantasms passed all around, as oblivious to her as they were to their own true form. She could pass through solid rock and move from building to building with ease. Nothing could keep her out or shield itself from her gaze. Was this the power that Captain Peters and his superiors sought to wield? She was like air, but in the wrong hands this kind of freedom would become nothing more than a toxic gas; destroying all it touched. If her theory was correct, she could avert any such disaster from occurring. As she floated into the hospital, she could feel that she was close.
Her mind was very much active, but her resting body was still being watched over by Charlie. He tracked her astral movements as best he could and whenever he deduced that she had visited a location, he quickly went online to extrapolate as much info he could find on that location. At the moment he could see that she was in downtown Sydney. They had previously discussed several possible avenues of exploration and he figured that she was going with the hospital idea. It was not his preferred choice and with good reason. People generally do not like change. It makes them grumpy. Is there any greater change than the transition from life to death? Charlie feared that Emmy was setting herself up to meet some very ill tempered entities indeed.
Her position remained static for thirty seconds. This may not seem l
ike a great deal of time; about half the time a skydiver may take before pulling his cord. However, due to the mind’s natural tendency to drift, it was a significant period for an astral traveller. In Emmy’s state of heightened awareness, it would also seem considerably longer from her unique perspective. She must have found what she was looking for. This made Charlie extremely nervous. So nervous, in fact, that when he heard the sound of a car engine and looked out of the window to see a police car approaching, he decided to pull the cord himself.
Emmy, meanwhile, was transfixed. She presumed to be on an intensive care ward or some other unit for critically ill patients. When her parents died, she was too young to record any significant memory of the event. Pops told her that the accident did not kill them instantly, but that they passed on days later in hospital; in a place much like this. She figured it was better to view the ward from the spirit side. Like a photographic negative of reality, death became rebirth and the end was now the beginning.
Directly in front of her was a bed. On that bed she could make out the energy signature of a very sick human being. Their light was fading, but at the same time getting brighter. It was as if a bulb was contained within a shroud that dimmed it, but would burst free at any moment to blind all around it.
Emmy floated closer to the dying person and that was when the impossible happened. A new energy signature appeared directly above the bed. She felt a power far greater than anything she had previously witnessed. It seemed to draw in the energy of the sick person as easily a living person draws air into their lungs when they breathe. As the two energies made contact everything else seemed to shrink away into nothingness and then in a flash, both energies disappeared.
She tried to figure out what had happened, but before any thoughts could form, another energy source appeared. She felt no fear, but she was drawn to it. It, however, was the one that started to move towards her. As it did so, it began to change shape. It continued towards her whilst reshaping itself into humanoid form. Features were starting to become apparent, but whilst it gained clarity, it retained its weightlessness and luminescence. A single word formed in her mind; ghost.
Diamond Sky Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 9