Diamond Sky Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3

by David Clarkson

  The professor was right. Lucas had to act quickly and he had only one option. He prepared to squeeze the trigger when his ears were filled with a piercing scream causing him to fall to his knees. He shut his eyes, focusing all of his attention on the pain until he could feel it no more.

  When he opened his eyes the room had changed dramatically. It was filled with soldiers, except it was not. The translucent negative of the future had jumped ahead considerably. Lucas could not spot the former body of Mike Peters amongst the ghostly images of the future. He was experiencing two timelines at once and his mind could not take it. His inner thoughts returned to the advice of the doctor to take a sedative and try to sleep through it. He did not require a sedative. He simply passed out.

  ***

  It was the first time Emmy had been back to the town since the night of the fire. She felt a twang of guilt as she drove past the Sly Fox. The upstairs window was still boarded up, but aside from that there were no obvious signs of the damage on this side of the building.

  Main Street was empty, which was unusual at this time of day, even for a town as small as Jackson’s Hill. There were few signs at all that the town was even populated. She sensed something was not right. There was an atmosphere of impending disaster in the air and she could begin to see why Lucas was so worried. Charlie met her and Lucy as they pulled up outside of the station.

  ‘Emmy, thank God you are okay,’ said her colleague. ‘Did you see Lucas?’

  ‘God had nothing to do with it,’ she replied. ‘As for Lucas, he is up there now - arresting Mike.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘There is no time to explain. This town really is in danger and there may only be one man that can help us make sense of it.’

  ‘Who’s tha...’ his voice trailed off as he guessed what she was thinking.

  ‘You know that we have to do this. As much as it pains me to admit it; David Armareth may be our only hope.’

  ‘How do we even know that we can talk to him? Lucas interviewed him the first thing this morning and all he got was Sammy.’

  ‘If he is in there, he will reveal himself to me; you can trust me on that.’

  For her protection and that of her friends she took out a set of handcuffs from Lucas’ office and used them to bind the Aboriginal’s hands before beginning the interrogation. Once she was convinced he could do them no harm, she jumped straight in with her first question.

  ‘Why did you run?’

  It was a straightforward question, yet it would have elicited confusion from Sammy. Sammy, however, was not the one to answer.

  ‘I thought the answer to that would be obvious. I am in a prison cell, after all.’

  His voice did not contain a trace of the Aboriginal’s usual dialect. The tone was unmistakeably that of the former town mechanic.

  ‘I know who killed my grandfather. What I want to know is why you ran. If you had stayed, it would have been easier for you to explain yourself. He was already dead when you found him.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t. That was why he called me that night and asked me to come. He wanted me to witness his end. He wanted an alibi and a fall guy.’

  ‘What do you mean? He was dead when you found him - he had to have been. Mike killed him.’

  The prisoner slowly shook his head.

  ‘The soldier is as innocent as I am. Jackson killed himself. He set me up. I could do nothing to stop him, just like I could do nothing to save the soldier last night. I can only hope that he crossed over safely.’

  ‘Crossed over?’

  Charlie shook Emmy’s shoulder, but she ignored him, too rapt was she in the words of a dead man.

  ‘I think you more than anybody know what I mean. I can see the memories of your Aboriginal friend. He tried to warn you of the danger you were heading toward, but you ignored him. I never believed any of that Aboriginal superstition, but it seems he really does have a connection with his ancestors. Of course, I think you may have had a little to do with that.’

  ‘Is he..?’

  ‘Don’t worry - he’s fine. We have...an understanding. I think he is the reason that I have not ended up like the captain.’

  ‘Mike - I thought you said he was dead?’

  ‘Sammy’s main concern is in the danger of bringing nature out of balance. The way he sees it is that each body is bound to its corresponding spirit. If I occupied Sammy’s body in place of his own, it would cause disharmony, but because his spirit remains where it should be, his physical being is unharmed.’

  ‘That does not explain how you got in there.’

  ‘You’re the scientist, not me. One minute I felt a burning sensation in my back and the next that I was aware I was seeing the world through another man’s eyes. All I remember in between was a strange mist. It seemed kind of green.’

  She thought back to her last otherworldly encounter with Lucy’s father. The story seemed consistent with what she had heard before.

  ‘Tell me more about Mike. What you have said does not make any sense. He is alive; we just left him not an hour ago.’

  ‘If there is one thing you should have learned by now it is that you should know better than to trust your eyes. Tell me; what did Jackson say about me?’

  It was the first time she had heard anyone call her grandfather by his first name. He had always been known as Professor Fox or simply; sir. The familiarity seemed audacious and disrespectful.

  ‘He never talked about you. I know what you did though. You took his legs away from him. The one thing I could never figure out was why he let you get away with it. You should have been in a cell long before this one.’

  For the first time, emotion began to show through the late mechanic’s disparate visage. He was smiling.

  ‘The great Jackson Fox; they said there was nothing that he could not do. I used to look up to him; everybody did. We all thought that one day he would cure cancer or at least bring a few gold medals home to Australia. Sadly, he did neither. His greatest achievement was in giving the world the most beautiful woman it had ever known. I am talking, of course, about your mother.’

  She felt her stomach tighten, but she knew she had to hear this.

  ‘I fell in love with Felicity the moment I saw her. What amazed me more than anything, was that she felt the same way as I did.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ shouted Emmy.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Charlie, placing his hands on her shoulders. ‘He wants to make you angry, but you’re stronger than that.’

  ‘You could not have me more wrong. Jackson really did a thorough job in poisoning your minds against me. The truth is that he only had himself to blame for the accident. He could not stand it that your mother wanted to be with me. There was just no way that his selfish pride could allow for her to marry what he regarded as beneath her.’

  ‘My mother married the man she loved. She loved my father, not you.’

  Armareth stood and walked to the rear of the cell, turning his back on them. There was a window, which let in a small amount of light. As the column shone down and illuminated his face, it seemed for a moment that Sammy had given way to Armareth’s former body. After a moment, he turned back around and was unmistakably the Aboriginal once more.

  ‘George was a good man and I do not begrudge Flick for marrying him, but he was always her second choice. She wanted to be with me.’

  ‘So why wasn’t she?’ asked Lucy.

  Emmy felt betrayed and shot her new found friend a grimace to show her displeasure. Lucy simply shrugged in response.

  ‘He deserves to tell his story,’ she replied, defensively. ‘You obviously have your preconceptions, but I believe him.’

  ‘You don’t know him.’

  ‘Neither do you.’

  Emmy was starting to lose her cool and they were no further forward in coming up with a plan to deal with the radiation. She turned back to Armareth.

  ‘Is any of this relevant?’ she asked. ‘What I need to know is what you can tell us
about this psychic radiation everyone is experiencing. It seems that the dead can see it. Is there a way to stop it?’

  ‘You’re asking the wrong man. Your grandfather is the only one who knows the answer to that.’

  Emmy leapt to her feet and beat her fists in the air.

  ‘This is a complete waste of time!’ she shouted.

  ‘Wait,’ said Lucy. ‘Give him one more chance.’

  Then turning to Armareth, she asked, ‘you told us that Mike is dead. If that is the case; who is it up at the observatory with Lucas?’

  Armareth did not respond with words. He looked Emmy straight in the eye and she knew what he was thinking.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ she said, but deep down she knew that it was true.

  ***

  Lucas woke in darkness. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out a curved ceiling of some sort just above his head. Then it hit him; he was inside the strange machine he had seen earlier. He tried to move, but his body had been bound tightly, rendering him completely helpless.

  When he set out for the observatory everything had been clear. All he had to do was arrest the villain and wait for Emmy and Charlie to come up with a cure for everybody. Of course, that was before he knew who that villain was.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he called out. ‘Do you plan on killing me like you did the others?’

  ‘Oh, now come, Lucas,’ replied the voice from outside of the chamber. ‘Please do not be so short sighted your whole life; however much shorter that may be. Surely the fact I stand before you now tells you that death is not the end and that being the case, murder is but a trifling thing.’

  With each word emitted, the voice was more that of the professor’s rather than of the soldier whose body he inhabited. Lucas only knew Jackson Fox as a crippled old man in a wheelchair, but he had seen many photographs of the great man in his prime. The man whose spirit was now wearing the body of a dead soldier like a cowl.

  ‘Why did you do it?’

  ‘You really are a fool, aren’t you? Do you know what it was like to spend all those years trapped in a useless body whilst having to watch young men like yourself waste their youth, their strength and their potential? I became a prisoner of this wretched town, whilst you actually chose to throw your life away on it. Well, I no longer have to merely watch. This body has grown weak, like my old one. It is time that I got an upgrade.’

  Lucas now knew what the machine was for.

  ‘You are going to steal my body – is that your plan?’

  ‘You still don’t get it. This is not a plan. All I am doing is what anybody else would do in my position – trying to survive. Mike’s body has grown weak. Perhaps yours will do the same, but I have to try.’

  ‘You don’t – you have a choice. You can stop this. Emmy and Charlie can come up with a cure for everybody. It does not have to end like this.’

  ‘This is not the end - far from it. This, my friend, is only the beginning.’

  ***

  ‘Can’t we go any faster,’ shouted Emmy.

  ‘Not unless you want us to veer off into a ditch,’ replied Lucy.

  The girls and David Armareth were on their way to the observatory. Charlie had stayed behind to warn others of what he knew, should they not make it back. Emmy saw what they were doing as a rescue mission, with both Lucas and her grandfather needing their help. Lucy and the other passenger knew that this was probably not going to be the case.

  ‘I’m just worried that if we don’t make it in time, Lucas could make a terrible mistake,’ said Emmy.

  ‘You’re worried that Lucas could make a mistake?’ replied Lucy. ‘Don’t forget it is your grandfather who has been doing the killing. I’m more concerned that Lucas will be next.’

  ‘He’s confused. His spirit is trapped in a body it was never intended for. Memories and emotions are all physical properties of the brain. We cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to experience the world through the emotions of another.’

  ‘You’re forgetting that he’s only in this position because he stole that body to begin with and killed a man in the process.’

  ‘We don’t know that. We only have his word for that,’ she scowled at Armareth. ‘For all we know, he got pulled in as a result of this radiation problem.’

  Lucy did not answer and the silence told Emmy what the others thought of her theory. Frustrated and afraid, she sat back in her seat and waited to face whatever was in store at the observatory. Lucy pulled in alongside Lucas’ truck, but Emmy told her not to get out.

  ‘Give me five minutes alone with him,’ she said. ‘If it is not too late, I may be able to talk some sense into him.’

  Lucy nodded and Armareth did not say a thing. Emmy got out of the car and ran inside the building before making her way to the laboratory. Lucas was sitting on the edge of the slab and appeared unhurt. Her grandfather, or at least the body he may have temporarily occupied, lay lifeless on the floor.

  ‘Am I too late?’ she asked.

  Lucas looked up at her. His eyes were dark and wracked with guilt.

  ‘I had no choice,’ he told her. ‘It was me or him. I am sorry that it had to be this way.’

  ‘Did you speak to him before he died?’

  ‘Yes, he was quite mad. It was the radiation that did it.’

  ‘At least now he will be at peace.’

  She knelt down and looked at the body, but could see only the corpse of a soldier.

  ‘I wish I could have had once last chance to speak with him,’ she said. ‘I have so many questions I need answering.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him now,’ said an unwelcome voice from over her shoulder by the door.

  It was Armareth. Lucy was not with him, but his handcuffs had been removed.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked him. ‘We are too late. Pops is dead.’

  ‘No,’ replied Armareth. ‘I can see him sitting right over there.’

  At first, she thought he was seeing her grandfather’s spirit, returned from another realm the same way that Lucy’s father had. Then she realised he was referring to Lucas, who was watching the newcomer cautiously.

  ‘What are you saying?’ she asked.

  ‘I am saying that you were right; we are too late. Jackson already took what he wanted. I’m afraid that our good friend Lucas is the one who is now dead.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ she told him, then turning to Lucas, ‘tell him that it isn’t true.’

  ‘Did you bring him here?’

  ‘I thought he would be able to help.’

  ‘He’s dangerous. Go back to the car and I will take care of him.’

  She could see a ruthless determination in his eyes that she had never before seen in Lucas. She took a step away from him.

  ‘He’s telling the truth; isn’t he? You killed Lucas just like you killed Mike and Bradley.’

  When Lucas did not reply, she knew it was not really him. She retreated further away towards the prospective safety of the man she had once blamed for tearing her family apart.

  ‘How many other lies did you tell?’ she asked. ‘How did you really lose your legs?’

  ‘Emmy, I don’t know what you mean. It’s me; Lucas. He’s trying to mess with your head. The radiation is at its strongest point here, you have to try and be strong to block it out.’

  ‘Tell me how you lost your legs,’ she repeated.

  ‘He asked me to meet him here,’ said Armareth. ‘Just like he did two days ago when he framed me for murder. I was young and naive and thought that maybe I could talk him into letting me see Flick.’

  ‘Do not say her name!’ shouted Fox. ‘You have no right to speak her name.’

  ‘When I saw him, he tried to pay me off. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand; he just kept raising the price. Only he could be so callous as to try and put a value on his own daughter. I told him I was not interested and that I was going to marry her. That was when he showed his true colours. He pulled out a shotgun. He sai
d he would tell the police I had broken in to rob the place and that he had shot me in self defence. I had no choice but to run. He followed me and that is when he ruined everybody’s lives.’

  ‘Enough!’ shouted Fox, lurching forward, running towards Armareth.

  The other man was ready for him and used Sammy’s considerable bulk to soak up much of the initial momentum of the attack. Knowing that she could do little to affect the outcome of the fight, Emmy ran to take cover behind the bank of control monitors. She noticed that the machines were up and running. The energy signatures of both men showed up clearly on the display, with the dual spirited body of Sammy being easily distinguishable by its greater luminescence. When the two men touched, she noticed something bizarre happened. It was as if the entire laboratory became filled with an intense energy the like of which she had never seen before. She thought back to what had happened when she had touched Lucy’s father the first time and the doorway that had opened.

  ‘You have to hold him,’ she shouted to Armareth. ‘Once he crosses over, he will have no power in this world.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ replied Armareth.

  ‘Trust me, it is the only way. When two spirits connect it opens up some sort of portal, like a wormhole in space and time. At least, that is what I think it is.’

  ‘Save the science for somebody who understands. All I need to know is will this portal of yours hold him?’

  ‘I guess so. We have to try.’

  She watched as Sammy’s broad arms wrapped around the torso of Lucas’ body, squeezing tightly around the man hiding inside.

  ‘Can you see it?’ she shouted.

  ‘See what?’ replied Armareth.

  ‘The portal; it leads on to whatever follows this life. You should feel a pull towards it when you both touch.’

  Armareth looked around and in doing so, temporarily lowered his concentration, allowing his foe to wriggle free. Fox knew that he could not best Sammy in close combat and retreated to a corner of the laboratory where he picked up Mike’s old gun.