With that, her definition of the events of the previous weeks shifted. Perhaps the situation that seemed as threatening as a snake, might have been more like a string. “Thank you,” she said. Pearson strolled over and took his place beside her.
“SivSat also said, ‘All efforts resulted in great accomplishment for trends of time.’” The man looked at her. “From SivSat, these words are not given lightly, Miss.”
So, perhaps no mistake! Alexa clasped her hands. “Will I ever meet him, do you think?”
“SivSat always remembers someone who assists him, as you did.”
“I assisted him?”
“He was searching for an item that you delivered. From what I’ve seen in my years with SivSatyananda, it would not be surprising for him to appear, to find you, at any time.”
At that instant a robot zipped by, emitting an unmistakable racket: Click-whiiiiiiiiiinnne–Click-whiiiiiiiiiinnne–Click-whiiiiiiiiiinnne
Alexa recognized the orange cart-bot and shouted, “Stop!” before it disappeared around a corner. Without hesitation, Pearson moved to chase it down.
She caught his arm.
After considering a moment, she whispered, “Whatever that monster—you were right to call it that—actually wants, I can’t keep it from seeking.” Gazing around her at the joyous chaos tumbling by, Alexa continued, “On the other hand, I refuse to spend the rest of my life running. Let it be. And we’ll just move along, home.”
Note from Laure
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Laure
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Preview of
Laure Edwards Reminick’s
Jaguar Transit
The second installment in the Crystal Ceres Books
Expected in Autumn 2014
Jaguar Transit
Chapter 1
I dropped shopping bags on the sofa in the Paris apartment shared with my fiancé and my robot—um, lover? friend? savior?
Because Pearson worked hard to hide his mechanical nature, months ago I realized the importance of not attracting attention. Thus, wearing my cargo pants and T-shirts from 2012 was out of the question. It had been a huge relief to locate a certain posh boutique offering tailored outfits, because they were sooooo much more what I was accustomed to, instead of the standard silky pajama sets worn by most people in the year 2962.
In the bedroom, the sight of my dog curled on a pillow made me smile. While passing the bed Bill raised his head, and I made it into the closet before he began with the questions. “Where have you been?”
I said, “Shopping.”
Now how could anyone tire of a dog with a face capable of betraying a thought like, “Again?”
This particular perfect pooch was the result of Pearson using his own ultra life-like engineering to create a dog who ate nothing and never required a walk. The moment I laid eyes on the Chihuahua, he captured my heart. Bill pranced to the side of the bed and sat back on his haunches, paws stretched forward. His eyes followed me about the room.
After steaming away the few wrinkles and hanging up my new outfits, I began rearranging the closet; first by color—red, blue, green, purple—then style. Next, organized my drawers. Shoes also. All this took hardly any time, since I’d overhauled everything barely two weeks earlier. Pearson’s clothes? Nah. Gray is gray is gray.
In my real life, I’d never put this much attention on clothes.
On the other hand, my life 950 years ago did not consist of a tiny circle under the protection of a robot. A situation that developed as I got better and better at disappearing, while waiting for a certain Master of Masters to make good on his offer to send me home. Despite some brave words a while ago, I’d become afraid.
On the way to locate some afternoon activity, a constant hunt for me, I stopped at the mirror to wrangle my curls into order. Bill, who continued watching, glanced briefly at the door when the cling-clang of pans and plates rolled out of the kitchen. “Must be cleaning day,” I said, while sweeping him up into my arms for a kiss and then placing him on the floor.
Hiring humans cost a small fortune, but those were real ladies washing up in there. Pearson simply refused to consider the idea of me taking care of the apartment.
My destination was the home office in the opposite wing of the apartment. Bill shadowed my steps. About half-way there, he peered up at me and said, “Want to play tug of war?” That’s how I kept in shape, trying to keep from being dragged across the carpet by my foot-high dog.
“How about later? First, there are some back-ups I can do today.” My reply was pretty cheery because it was something to focus on. Last week before Pearson left on his first trip away from me, I organized his collection of books and treatises on history, mathematics, physics and esoterica. He loved hearing about my parents’ extensive library on everything from reincarnation to astrology. While growing up, debating the likelihood of astral traveling had been a normal conversation in our house. Recently Pearson and I spent hours discussing Jyotish, after he noticed a transit of the Moon over my eighth house, whatever that means. At first, he seemed to be concerned about it, but then said it was probably nothing.
As we passed the kitchen, the ladies’ chatter spilled out. “It is not strange the Captain Pearson has not become tired of his ‘kept woman.’ N’est-ce pas?” said one woman.
“You are just jealous,” replied her coworker.
“Mmmm, oui. The captain is very handsome. I would be very happy to be kept by him,” said the first. “And I would remain true. Unlike she, who even took another man to her bedroom. You see, one night I came back for my littlest note pad. And there she was, and there he was, and then I left.”
“Marie. Take care,” admonished the other. “The mademoiselle may arrive home early.”
At the cusp of the hallway, I muttered, “You might think that by now, society would be beyond liberal.”
Bill looked up at me and then over to the kitchen. “You want me to bite her ankle?”
I smiled at his joke, since we both knew he couldn’t hurt a human.
As I motioned for Bill to proceed down the hall first, the front door buzzer startled us both. No one ever visited if Pearson wasn’t present, and most everyone knew he’d be gone for at least another few days.
We stood in the hallway as the voicer of opinions about “kept women” hurried to answer the door. When the lady saw me, her hand almost made it to her mouth. After a half-curtsy in my direction she scurried to the door. Bill gave a low growl.
“Hello, is Alexa Jane Alden in?” came a male voice. “If so, could you tell her Zaire Chevalier is here?”
“I. Oh, oui,” said the lady. She cleared her throat. “Wait a moment, s’il vous plait.” It was only a few feet to the living room, but after the front door closed it was a long time before the woman crept around the corner. “Mademoiselle Alden? Someone is at the door for you, a Monsieur Chevalier.” She held her hands in front of her. “I am very sorry. I did not know you were here.”
My eyebrows were probably in one of those haughty ironic places. “I would be delighted to see Mr. Chevalier. Please show him in.”
When Zaire came through the door, I couldn’t help but give him a hug. He looked the same as we’d last seen each other, four months ago at about 2:00 a.m. on a beach across from the Kumbh Mela mega spiritual gathering in India. Actually Zaire was far better attired than that night, in clothes that fit the corporate newsma
n role and dreadlocks neatly tied back.
We shook hands, both smiling. Almost laughing, I said, “Unless this is a social call, I am guessing you located Rachel.”
He fell into one of the easy chairs. “Yup, found her.” Zaire reached down to scratch behind Bill’s ears. “Alexa, for a bit it looked like I wouldn’t be able to do it, despite my best efforts in data mining. Then some anonymous source sent me access codes to three old databases. The sites were mostly about ancient history so not useful to me in general.” Zaire stopped, and shook his head in doubt. “It was strange receiving those codes. I wouldn’t usually trust that type of source, but the data was from exactly the time period I needed. And once I knew what I was looking for, I double checked with other databases.”
“No idea who sent the info?” When he said no, I remembered my manners. “Something to drink, or a snack?”
“No thanks. Just had lunch.” He brought his pad from a messenger bag and laid it beside him. “There was that big solar event in about the year 2020, which erased most data on Earth. But afterwards, people re-digitized the hard copies and began replicating data.”
“Tell me, did Rachel have a good life?” Bill jumped up and settled himself against my leg.
Zaire shrugged. “She did, if you define high society that way.”
I snorted. “Rachel, a society matron?” My friend had been anything but part of the jet set. We had caroused together in our small Florida town during and shortly after high school in 2002. We also kept in touch when I moved to back to Virginia, where my father’s family came from. Then four months ago in the current century, we were yanked to planet Adalans from Earth. We parted ways in India, in a tiny garden shed on the same River Ganges beach where I left Zaire.
“Photos of her at this and that event,” Zaire moved his hand back and forth, “appeared haute monde to me.” He glanced at me, “You see, she married. So perhaps she was a trophy spouse for that man.”
“Married? Oh good, maybe to that gallery owner she’d set her sights on. So, who?”
“Long name,” said Zaire. He began annunciating, “Arrrr,” but stopped to power on the notepad and page through his notes. “Here it is: Armstrong.”
At this, my breath stopped. No, it couldn't be.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding to himself. “Armstrong MacPhearson, in the Bahamas.”
I swear my heart dropped to the other side of the world, and broke when it hit. It was all I could do to keep sitting, stunned, staring at the carpet.
Armstrong MacPhearson. Or, Mac to me. My fiancé. The one for whom I moved space and earth in order to make it to the one man capable of transporting me back through time to Mac. But that night in India when it was explained that only one person would be able to go back, I granted the opportunity to Rachel. And now it seemed Mac had no trouble carrying on life without me, thank you very much. When Bill tried to nudge his nose under my hand I drew it away.
While Zaire continued sharing details about Mac and Rachel’s life together, my emotions turned me inside out and slammed against my throat. When he began showing photos I jerked back. “Thank you, Zaire.”
He glanced up in surprise. “Did I say something wrong?”
I need to be alone, very alone. I opted to simply shake my head. Blessedly, I was able to stand up, take Zaire’s arm and head him toward the front door. “Thank you so much for checking in?” Uh oh, the up-speak again. That speech pattern had turned up recently. Thought I got rid of it. “But turns out that I have an appointment shortly?”
“I hoped you would tell me the whole story.” Zaire dug his heals in at the exit. “Before you took off in that funky antique airplane that night, you said if I found Rachel you would explain to me why you three kept talking about another century. And I really want to know how Rachel could have such a life then, when I knew her now.”
I made a face, as in how can I explain this. “It’s such a long tale? I really am afraid we will have to get together another time.” Which will be never if I can help it.
He’s such a newsman, it wasn’t a surprise when Zaire said, “How about this week? Thursday, perhaps? I can take you to lunch.”
I practically pushed him out. “Check in with me later?” I closed the door. After the click, a moment of silence offered some grace. Even Bill said nothing. Then clattering from the kitchen proved my goal of solitude remained elusive.
“Ladies?” In the kitchen, they turned at my voice. “You can take the rest of the afternoon off.” Doubt was clear on their faces. “It’s all right. Your jobs are okay.” I took a deep breath. “It’s just time for you to leave. Okay?” They continued to not move. “For today.” Determined to claim my space, I lingered near the kitchen. And as the ladies, belongings in hand, headed for the apartment’s back door, I followed till they disappeared from view. “Thanks so much for your help.” The evenness of my tone astounded my quivering self.
Hard to know how long I stood in the kitchen, staring at nothing. Eventually, Bill nudged me and I picked him up. As he reached up to lick my cheek I meandered over to a wall of windows and gazed onto the ever-renewed Paris from 164 floors up. The top of the Eiffel Tower could barely be seen over some buildings.
The dates on Zaire’s photos were maybe a year and a half after I left, and after Rachel showed up in Florida with strange clues about my disappearance. Supposedly almost immediately, Mac began creating the robot that would become Pearson.
Bill said, “I thought Mac was yours. Who is Rachel?”
I swallowed deeply, refusing to speak. Memories trounced through my mind. Times when Mac and Rachel shared an easy laugh over a joke that I needed an extra moment to understand. I’m kind of stupid sometimes.
This life in Paris that I’d so carefully crafted, with a human-shaped robot playing the role of an ersatz Mac—a sham, an illusion. No surprise there, eh? In the kitchen, the dishwasher switched over to the next cycle. On the mantel, an heirloom clock from 2183 chimed the quarter hour.
Must move. I barely remembered my coat and keys before running from the apartment. Seeking what?
For my husband, Allen
Deepest thanks to
Coyle Schwab, Master Pilot of the Cessna 195
And my father, Gene Edwards, from whom I have my love of reading
Seeking Sirius Page 26