“And my Mara?”
“Will have a new synthetic body within two weeks. She should be back as soon as they disconnect me from the receptacle network and reconnect her.”
He reached over and put his hand over hers. “It looks like Abby isn’t the only one who’s been traumatized recently. You didn’t grow up expecting to be transitioned to an artificial body. It must have been terrible to lose your body and at the hands of your friend.”
Mara looked away, embarrassed, not wanting to feel those emotions now. “It’s easier not to think about it. Besides, Abby was dragged into this because of me. I must find a way to get her out of this mess, to get her home.” She blinked away tears and wiped her eyes.
Her father stood up and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. “My Mara, always trying to fix everything for everyone. You might be from a strange realm, but you’re still the same Mara. Aren’t you?”
Mara looked up at him and said, “Can I go see Abby?”
He smiled and said, “That’s why I came here. After she calmed down, Abby refused to take the sedative I gave her until I proved you were still alive.”
Mara pulled away from him and said, “Why didn’t you say so? Let’s go see her.”
“I wanted to better understand the situation before exposing Abby to more potential trauma. She’s in a fragile state. Just be with her. No discussion of dragons or things snatching her body or anything of that nature. Just be her friend. Understand?”
Mara nodded. “Can we go now?”
Her father turned to Ping and Sam with a mock look of exasperation. “When she gets something in her head, there’s no stopping her.”
“It’s surprising she waited for you to finish the examination,” Sam said.
“Why don’t you two wait here,” Dr. Lantern said. “I’ll be back in a minute after I show Mara to Abby’s room.”
Ping and Sam nodded in agreement.
Her father led Mara back to the hall and took a right. After passing two doors on the left, he pointed to the third. He stood a few feet away, indicating to Mara that he would remain here until she had entered the room. Nodding and smiling, she tapped on the door.
“Come in.” Abby’s weak but familiar voice barely penetrated the door.
Mara opened the door and stepped inside the bedroom, twice the size of Mara’s at home with much higher ceilings. In the center of the far wall, a four-poster bed stood between two heavily curtained windows. On it, Abby lay, propped up against a mound of pillows piled against a large headboard. She looked anxious and tired, with dark circles under her eyes, stark against her pale skin.
“Dude, you are alive,” Abby said in weak amazement.
Mara closed the door, crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Leaning forward, she hugged her friend and said, “Alive and kicking. I’m not that easy to get rid of, you know.”
“Yeah, but I—”
Mara gripped her friend’s shoulders. “You didn’t do anything. Everything that has happened, everything you remember from that night on the gadget shop roof until the day you showed up here was not you. Understand? I know that, and it’s important you know that. You are not responsible for what that thing did.”
“It tortured people, Mara. Slaughtered them. Even children.”
“I know, sweetie. I know. For now, push those memories from your mind and focus on getting better.”
“But it’s still out there, the black cloud. It’s looking for me, and it will not give up until it’s inside me again.”
“That won’t happen.” She gripped Abby’s arms and gave them a soft shake. “I will not let that happen again. I promise you.”
“How can you stop something that is already dead? Did you know he died and came back? His name was Juaquin. I could see his memories, his life before he died, when we were joined.”
“He’s not the only one who’s been dead and back.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just that I’m as determined, more determined even, to make sure he never hurts you or anyone else again.”
“The Aphotis wants the power of the progenitor for himself,” Abby said, deadpan.
Using the word Aphotis and the declarative way she said the sentence startled Mara. It was almost as if she spoke for him again. A shiver ran up Mara’s spine.
“He intended to take you that night on the roof, saw it as his destiny. I was just collateral damage in his fight with you,” Abby said.
“I know,” Mara said. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him.”
“If you couldn’t do it then, what makes you think you can stop him now?”
“I’ve learned a lot since that night. I’m not as afraid as I used to be. Don’t get me wrong. I still get scared, but the longer I have to deal with this stuff, the less it rattles me when something flies out of left field. Believe me. He will not get you again.”
The tension lines on Abby’s brows melted, and she smiled. “I believe you.”
“Great. Now my father says you refused to take a pill he left somewhere here,” Mara said, looking around.
Abby pointed to the nightstand. Next to the lamp was a small silver tray with a glass of water and a single round pill. “After he said you were alive, I was afraid to go to sleep.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know. My head is so screwed up. I thought, if I went to sleep, that I would wake up, and the whole thing would be a dream, and you’d be dead again. Crazy, huh?”
“Considering what we’ve been through, that sounds pretty normal,” Mara said. She grabbed the glass of water and the pill, and handed them to Abby.
After she took the pill, Abby said, “Speaking of normal, your dad swears the Ping guy is no longer a dragon. Is that true?”
Mara held up her hand in a scout’s honor sign and said, “Yep, he was fully dedragoned before we got here. So he’s back to normal.” If you call normal having two of him in the house. She didn’t risk explaining that one.
Abby lay back on the pillows, her eyelids already drooping, and said, “Before you got here. That’s good.” Her eyes snapped open. “Here? Where is here?”
Mara patted her friend’s knee through the blanket. “Here is safe. We can discuss the details in the morning.”
CHAPTER 21
The next morning, after checking on Abby, Mara made her way down the hall toward the staircase. Lost in thought about how to deal with the Aphotis, she focused on the floor, watching the carpet runner’s pattern roll past her feet. She needed to pigeonhole Ping—her Ping—for a few minutes to discuss what to do about the black swarm. Maybe Sam had blown it to smithereens. It’d be nice for something to be that simple for a change.
Her foot hit something, and she stumbled. Catching her balance, she looked up in time to see a mider flying across the hall and slamming into the frame of a nearby door. Those things give me the creeps. Why are they always sneaking up on me?
A grinding whirring sound came from the mechanical spider, and its legs flailed against the wall and floor as it righted itself. Mara increased her pace and ran for the stairs. However, just as she reached the stairs, she heard a loud squeak followed by a click.
Squeak, click, squeak, click.
She glanced over her shoulder. The damaged mider limped toward her, one of its legs broken and dragging along the floor, making do with seven legs, but not moving any slower than before.
She continued down the stairs, taking them two at a time. At the second floor landing, she paused and looked up. The mider followed.
She continued to the first floor, still hearing the persistent squeak, click behind her. At the foot of the stairs, she turned toward the kitchen. As she passed the double doors to the fabrication shop, she paused and reached for one of the door knobs, just to check if it was unlocked. As her fingers touched it, both doors rattled, and she jumped back.
Without warning, a door swung open to reveal a lanky sandy-haired man a few years older t
han Mara. He smiled at her, a glint in his eye.
Mara gasped and said, “Bruce?”
“Mara! I didn’t know you were back.” He pulled her into a hug, which was more familiar than she expected from her boss’s grandson, the bicycle mechanic who worked out back of Mason’s Fix-It. At least he was in her realm.
When she felt him relax his hold on her, she stepped back, but he yanked her forward again, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his lips to hers.
“What is going on here?” Sam asked, approaching from the kitchen. He pointed a piece of toast at them.
Mara pushed against Bruce’s chest and staggered backward, her heel hitting something hard enough to hurt herself. She looked down to see the mider had snuck up on her again. Now she stood on one of its legs, and it skittered in a circle, squealing, trying to get loose. Lifting her foot, she toed aside the mider. She glared at Bruce and wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
To her brother, she said, “I’m not sure.”
Ping called out from the kitchen, “Mara, did I hear you out there?”
Sam yelled back, “Yeah, she’s making out with some guy in the hall.”
“We were not making out,” Mara said.
Bruce smiled and poked her in the side with a finger as if to tickle her. “Not yet.”
Ping ran from the kitchen. When Mara narrowed her eyes, he pointed to himself and said, “I’m the Ping from here. Yours is still upstairs, I believe.” He glanced at Bruce and asked, “It just occurred to me that I haven’t explained our circumstances to Bruce and that this might be awkward. Or maybe not. You two aren’t engaged in the realm you come from, are you?”
“Engaged? No,” Mara said. She took a step away from him.
“What are you talking about?” Bruce said. “Mara—”
Ping took her by the elbow and steered her toward the kitchen. “Why don’t you and your brother go have breakfast while I bring Bruce up to speed. After that, if you want, maybe he can give you a tour of the fabrication shop.” He waved his hand in that direction, turned to Bruce, pushing him through the open door to the shop.
Sam followed his sister. “That’s the bicycle guy at the shop. Isn’t it? I didn’t know he was your boyfriend.”
The mider, now with two limp legs, followed them into the kitchen. Squeak, click, click.
Mara sat down at the dinette table and plucked a piece of toast off the plate across from her. When the mider approached, she kicked at it. “Bruce is not my boyfriend, at least not in our realm,” she said, biting down on the toast. “Although I think I understand the attraction.”
Sam made a face and rolled his eyes. “Quit eating my food. Also that mider will keep coming until you accept its message. It’s a lot easier than stomping it to death.”
“I don’t know anyone in this realm, so why would I be getting a message? Besides I don’t have one of those pad thingies to suck up the digisteam,” she said. She went to the counter and popped a couple slices of bread into the toaster.
“Everyone around here knows you, at least the other you,” Sam said. He pulled one of the brass receiver pads from his back pocket and handed it to her. “Just press your thumb on the screen so it recognizes who you are and hold it out to the mider. Hopefully it can still deliver its message even though you’ve crippled it.”
“Where did you get that?”
“Dad gave me one last night, though I’m not sure why. No one even thinks they know who I am around here. Since I’m dead and all.”
Mara pressed her thumb on the screen and held the pad toward the mider. She could have sworn it hesitated before crawling toward her—not that she could blame it. But it did approach her, straightened its intact legs so it stood taller, opened its shell and extended its tiny smokestack. A puff of steam floated from it to the receiver pad, which made a whirring sound, inhaling the digisteam.
The screen flickered for a moment and cleared, displaying a page of text that looked remarkably like an email.
“It’s from someone named Mike Simmons,” Mara said. “That name mean anything to you?”
Sam shook his head.
Their father walked in and swiped the toast from the toaster as it popped up. “Mike Simmons is the police chief in town. Something serious must be happening if he’s contacting you.”
Mara glanced up from the screen. “Hey, if you are taking my toast, you have to put in two more slices. Mike Simmons. That name sounds familiar.”
“Do you know any police officers in your realm?” her father asked as he buttered the toast.
“A detective named Bohannon has helped us out in a pinch or two. I wonder if he’s around—That’s it. I think Mike Simmons was Bo’s boss,” she said. “Anyway, it looks like Sam didn’t kill the swarm after all. Mike says it has been attacking people in the southeast, and a couple have been seriously injured. Wants to know if I know anything. Why would he assume I know anything about it?”
Her father put a small plate with a slice of toast before her and sat down with his own. She handed the pad back to her brother and took her seat.
“Mara’s had more than one experiment go awry in the past few years, so he might think the swarm is something you—she—whipped up in the lab. It’s also possible he’s hearing wild-eyed rumors about the swarm flying into our realm through one of those chasms and causing an outbreak of malaria. Since the chasms were related to your disappearance, he might wonder if you know something about it. Either way, with something this strange, it wouldn’t be unusual for him to get in touch with the progenitor.”
“What would the other Mara do?” Sam asked his father.
“About what?” Mara interjected.
“Sounds like the police chief is looking for help,” Sam said.
“She’d reply to the message and say she’ll come into town and take a look,” Dr. Lantern said. “If you want a lift, I can give you one in a couple hours. I’ve got a house call in the opposite direction, but I can swing by here on the way back and pick you up.”
“I’m not sure I would be comfortable going into town impersonating the other Mara. Everyone knows she the progenitor, and I’m just a—”
“A closet progenitor,” Sam said. “It’s time to throw open the door and show the world the real you.”
“Funny,” she said. “I want to talk to Ping before I do something like that.”
Dr. Lantern finished his toast, stood and kissed the top of her head. “Whatever makes you comfortable, sweetheart. If you decide you want a lift, just mider me and I’ll stop by.”
* * *
Mara found Ping sitting in one of the wing chairs in the study, reading a book. He looked up and smiled when she sat on the nearby couch.
“Why are you hiding out up here? Didn’t you even get breakfast?” she asked.
“I went down for some coffee earlier and decided to stay out my counterpart’s way. It’s a little disconcerting for both of us, and I thought some distance would be a good idea so we don’t accidently touch,” he said. “How is Abby doing?”
“I think she’s coming around. She needs time to get her wits about her. Dad thinks limiting her exposure to a strange realm might be a good idea, considering all she’s been through.”
“That seems like sound advice. Distance from me might help as well. At the hotel she kept mentioning the dragon, and I wanted to isolate myself from her back then, but no one else was there to care for her. I hope I didn’t make things worse for her.”
“She’s got a handle on the whole dragon thing. The other Ping has been caring for her, and she seems okay with him. We haven’t explained that he’s not you, at least not the version of you who she has met.”
“I’ll endeavor to make sure we don’t appear to her at the same time,” Ping said.
Mara shifted on the couch. “I’m not worried about that. I got a message today from the police chief in town, and it turns out the Aphotis is still around, attacking people.”
“Presumably trying t
o possess them.”
“Right.”
“It seems that I am expected to go into town and do something about it.”
“That’s why you crossed over to this realm. Isn’t it? To confront the Aphotis?” Ping asked.
“Yes, but that’s when I thought it was destroying this realm and killing thousands of people. Also I didn’t realize that I would have to do it out in the open.”
“I don’t understand your point. Out in the open?”
Mara sighed. “Everyone here knows that I’m a progenitor. They think I am responsible for their existence or at least their existence in this realm. How am I supposed do anything about the Aphotis with everyone standing around expecting me to do something? At least back home I had the advantage of anonymity.”
Ping chuckled. “You think being a progenitor in a Reality where no one recognizes your abilities, where you have to hide them, is easier than one in which you can use them openly to deal with something as dangerous as the Aphotis? Think back about the stress you felt in your own realm. How much of that was fear of being caught? Remember the video of you on the news, battling the dragon? Anonymity wasn’t an advantage. At least here you can do what needs to be done, no matter who witnesses it.”
“I suppose that’s true, but I think you are missing my point.”
“You’re not afraid of being seen. You’re afraid of failure.”
“Before the whole world. In a realm I’m not familiar with.”
“We’re all afraid of failure, Mara. Even those of us who don’t have metaphysical powers. You’ll be fine. I have faith in you.”
“Thanks for the confidence, but what I’d really like is your presence. I’d be more comfortable if you’d come into town with me to look for the Aphotis.”
He slapped shut the book and smiled. “Of course. This house isn’t big enough for two Pings anyway.”
“Speaking of a crowded house, did you know I have a fiancé in this realm?”
CHAPTER 22
On her way to the first floor, Mara slowed her pace as the sound of grinding chains rose from below. As she passed the second floor landing, she crouched and peeked through the balusters to find what made the racket. She couldn’t see anything other than a blank wall, so she skulked down a few steps, keeping her head below the railing. After a half-dozen steps, the doors to the fabrication shop came into view. They were open. The metallic rumble came from beyond them. Now that she was closer, she heard Ping’s raised voice, still drowned out by the noise.
Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) Page 12