Lailani looked away from the remains toward several framed newspaper clippings. She pointed her flashlight and stepped closer. She read the newspaper headlines.
Dr. Death Sentenced!
Famed Doctor Caught Mutilating Captives!
Schroder's Wife and Children Still Missing
After Scum Destroy Prison, Dr. Death Flees Earth!
Schroder's Family Found Dead, Faces Missing
Dr. Death Still At Large; Reward Money Grows
Victims' Families Demand Justice!
Every newspaper clipping—lovingly framed and hung on the wall.
The room spun around Lailani. She struggled for breath. She should never have come here. She should have fled the instant they had disabled her pistol. She had delved into the lair of a serial killer, light-years away from Earth.
Do not panic! she told herself. You are a soldier. You are an officer in the Human Defense Force. You have fought worse than him.
A weapon. She needed a weapon! She would fight her way toward HOBBS, steal him back, and leave this cursed place. She would find somebody else to repair him, perhaps an engineer on Earth.
"We're leaving this damn place," she said aloud. "Me, HOBBS, and Epi."
A voice answered from behind her. "I'm quite afraid I can't allow that, my dear."
She grabbed a scalpel from the table. She spun around, pointing the blade.
Schroder stood there, smiling thinly. He had removed his lab coat and goggles, and instead he now wore a dark suit. He looked less like an engineer, more like an undertaker.
Lailani kept her scalpel pointing at him, still clad in her frilly gown, like a homicidal doll.
"You're going to return HOBBS to me," Lailani said. "And I'm flying away. We go our separate ways. I keep your little lab secret. End of story."
The doctor shook his head sadly. "Do you remember what I told you, Lailani? Humans cannot be trusted. They will betray you. Hurt you. If I release you, you will betray me."
Lailani snarled and stepped forward, scalpel pointing at him. "Like you betrayed your wife and kids? Like you carved out their hearts with a scalpel? Maybe I'll do the same to you."
The doctor sneered. He raised a fist. "I gave them immortality! My wife was getting old. Gray. Withered. I made her forever young. My children—they too were growing. Soon they would have turned against me. Hurt me. Betrayed me. As all humans do. As robotic dolls, they are forever small, forever loving, forever loyal."
"Only their hearts live!" Lailani shouted. "What about their brains—their memories, thoughts, personalities?"
"I tried!" Schroder shouted, face red now. "For years I tried! To connect brains to machines. To create true immortality. And I would have succeeded! I was close. So close!"
"And you would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for us meddling kids?" Lailani said.
"Humor," Schroder said. "Another human failing." He grinned luridly, exposing yellow teeth. "Here is a little humor of my own. I think you will become a nice little schoolgirl android. Just like Mimori. It will suit you, my little Oriental flower. I will enjoy carving out your heart."
"Pro tip: use a spoon. It's dull, it'll hurt more." Lailani tossed off her hat and ripped off her gown, remaining in her jeans and shirt. She gave him a crooked smile, scalpel raised. "If you can reach me first, that is. I might look like a doll, but I'm a combat officer in the HDF. And I'm bringing you back to Earth to face justice."
She lunged toward him.
"HOBBS!" Schroder said, stepping back. "Grab her!"
From the shadows he emerged—HOBBS, her robot, her dear friend.
Lailani skidded to a halt. Relief flooded her. HOBBS was healed! His armor had been patched up, a few of the older parts replaced. He had been washed and waxed. He looked brand new.
But his eyes were different. They no longer shone blue but an angry red.
"HOBBS!" Lailani cried. "Thank God. Let's get out of here, and—"
The cyborg grabbed her. His eyes blazed, pitiless.
"HOBBS!" Lailani struggled in his grip, unable to free herself. "Hobster, it's me—Lailani!"
"Don't bother, my dear," Schroder said, watching with a thin smile. "He doesn't remember you. He doesn't remember anything. I wiped his memory clean. He obeys me now."
Lailani's heart seemed to stop in her chest. She couldn't breathe.
No, she thought. No. Not his memory. The algorithms for the hourglass . . . The only way I can save the fallen . . .
She screamed and tossed her scalpel.
Schroder leaned aside, and the blade slashed across his cheek, cutting a red line.
Lailani thrashed, desperate to free herself.
"HOBBS! HOBBS, it's me!" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "You have to remember!"
Schroder clutched his wounded cheek, hissing. "Take her to the dungeon, HOBBS. Lock her in the containment cell. Leave her alive and conscious. I'll enjoy cutting out her heart as she screams and begs."
HOBBS nodded. He spoke in a deep, metallic voice. "Yes, master."
Lailani took a deep breath.
Nightwish, she thought, deactivating the chip in her mind. Let me become the beast.
Her consciousness expanded.
The dormant alien within her awoke.
She reached out her mind, attempting to seize Schroder, to command him like she had commanded the dragons of Mahatek.
She hit what felt like a brick wall.
Schroder laughed. "Your psychic abilities won't work here, girl. As soon as you landed, I recognized you. I activated a jamming signal across this station. Truly, yours is a fascinating brain! Part alien. I will enjoy dissecting it as you still live." He touched his bleeding cheek. "But first, Mimori will tend to my wound. HOBBS, carry out your orders."
The hulking robot carried Lailani through the laboratory, and she kicked and shouted until he covered her mouth. She couldn't breathe, and tears filled her eyes. He carried her down, down into the belly of the planet, and he tossed her into a dark cell. All was shadows, pain, and despair.
CHAPTER TEN
They trekked through the forest. Baba Mahanisha led the way, trampling over bushes and bending trees. The massive alien fed from the land as he walked, plucking grass and leaves and rushes with both trunks. Behind him followed Marco and Addy, clad in orange robes, walking sticks in hand. Despite being slimmer and lighter on their feet, both humans were falling behind the Durmian. Soon Mahanisha was walking far ahead.
"Hey, Poet." Addy elbowed his ribs. "Where's he taking us?"
"How should I know?" Marco shoved her elbow aside. "I'm not a mind reader."
Addy looked around her. "Maybe he's taking us to a Hot Dog Shack. Or a Dairy Queen. Maybe a nice Happy Cow Shawarma. Damn I'm hungry."
"You can try eating the rushes like Mahanisha." He poked her hip. "It would do you good to eat some salad."
She growled and raised her fist. "You can try eating a knuckle sandwich."
The trail was long. They walked for hours. But Marco was thankful for the journey. Over time, he came to see the hike as a form of meditation. He focused his awareness on every footstep, on the sounds of insects and birds and rustling leaves, on the feel of sunlight. When his legs began to ache, he let his breath flow into them, easing the pain.
Even Addy was surprisingly quiet. The old Addy would not tolerate a long, silent walk like this. He knew this; he had gone hiking and camping with her on Earth. The old Addy would sing, dance, joke around, climb trees, throw rocks, wrestle him, and do anything to fill the silence. Marco understood why now. It was to silence the demons.
Yet now Addy was able to walk silently. Instead of battling those demons with endless energy, she simply breathed. She experienced. She was in Deep Being. As they walked, she slipped her hand into his and smiled. They walked hand in hand, one with nature.
Finally they reached a river, and here the baba stopped, and they drank from the cold water. The river was filled with orange fish and many stones of various colors.
For the first time that day, the baba spoke. "Today we will learn about the mind. Today we will balance stones." He lifted one large white stone. "The white stone symbolizes our awareness. It is the foundation of the mind." He placed it in the shallow water, then lifted a blue stone. "The blue stone symbolizes our physical senses—what we hear, see, taste, feel. The ache of old wounds. The warmth of an embrace. The taste of food or the smell of a rose." He placed the blue stone atop the white stone, then lifted a green stone. "The green stone symbolizes our memories, be they kind or painful." He added it to the pile, gentle, then lifted a purple stone. "The purple stone symbolizes our emotions—love, anger, joy, despair. Often memories birth our feelings." Gingerly, he placed the emotions stone atop the memory stone. Finally he lifted a stone of many colors. "The stone of many colors symbolizes our thoughts, which are woven of all the stones beneath it. Our stone of thought completes the tower."
Delicately, he placed the memory stone atop his construction. The tower of five stones rose in the shallow water: a large stone of awareness and above it stones for senses, memories, emotions, and thoughts.
"Thus is the mind built," said the baba. "Of five components. Awareness is the foundation of the mind. Awareness is the most basic, purest, primal form of being. It is what we call Deep Being. All other components rest atop it. When we meditate, we retreat into our awareness stone. Into a state of Deep Being. From there, from within the river, we can observe the other stones above us. We are aware of our physical sensations, our memories, our emotions, and our thoughts. We do not suppress the other four components. We do not hide them, do not seek to silence them. We let them be. We support them in our awareness."
"What does the river represent?" Marco said.
"Life," said the baba. "Life flows around us. And if our tower is not balanced properly . . ." He nudged his tower of stones. It collapsed into the water. "Now let us practice. Let us balance stones. Let us balance our minds."
Marco and Addy got to work.
It was hard.
Balancing two stones was easy enough—a large white stone for awareness, above it a blue stone for senses. When Marco tried to balance the third stone, the green stone of memory, it kept slipping off. He had to start over, this time with a flatter white stone and larger blue one. Finally he managed to stack three together. Yet when he added the fourth stone, purple for emotions, the entire construction collapsed.
Addy was less patient. Soon she was cursing and throwing stones. She couldn't even get three to balance together.
"You're placing them down too quickly," Marco said. "Hold on to the stone for a while. Feel it. Sense its weight."
"You'll be sensing my weight when I hold you under the water," she muttered.
They kept working at it, choosing stones, delicately balancing them. Baba had made it look easy, but Marco and Addy made many attempts and still failed. Yet as they worked, trying again and again, this task too became a meditation. They could feel the stones. Breathe into them. Be one with them. Understand their shape and weight and movements. Build with them. Bring balance to the river.
Finally Marco got a tower to stand. Awareness at the bottom, the stone underwater. Above it: senses, memories, feelings, and thoughts. Around it flowed the river of life. It took Addy several more attempts, but finally she balanced a tower too.
She beamed at Marco. "My tower is taller than yours."
Marco rolled his eyes.
"Remember, my pupils," Baba Mahanisha said, "to always live in Deep Being. A life of Deep Being does not mean being empty of thoughts or feelings or memories. It is a life of awareness. A life where thoughts, feelings, memories, or sensations do not claim you, control you, become you. A life of observing, of being. The deepest part of your mind is awareness. Dwell there. Observe from there. Keep your tower strong, no matter how fast the river flows."
It was dark by the time they returned to the temple. Marco and Addy retreated to their bedchamber, a simple brick room with two piles of straw instead of mattresses. They lay down to bed, so weary after the march they fell asleep at once.
Sometime in the night, a scream woke Marco.
He leaped up, heart racing, sure that the grays had found them, that war flared. He whipped his head toward Addy.
She was thrashing on her straw bed. She screamed again. Her eyes were still closed.
"No," she whimpered. "No. Orcus, no! Don't hurt me. Don't brand me." She clutched her hip, covering her old brand, and screamed again. "Please don't. No. Don't hurt me. Don't kill them. Don't kill them . . ."
She jolted up in bed, and her eyes snapped open. Tears were on her cheeks.
Marco was with her at once, soothing her, embracing her.
"Only a dream," he whispered, stroking her hair. "Only a dream, Addy. I'm here with you. It's all right."
She trembled. Sweat soaked her body. "Not a dream. A memory." She grimaced. "I still feel the pain, Poet." She screwed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around him. "It still hurts so bad. All of it. What they did to me. What they made me see. The scum. The marauders. What the grays did to Steve. All of it. From my parents dying to the marauders torturing me to . . ." She wept. "The nightmares are still inside me."
He caressed her cheek. "Addy, look at me. Look into my eyes. It's not real."
She looked at him, eyes red. "What do you mean? It's real. I'm still scarred. I still have nightmares. It's fucking real."
"A memory," he whispered. "Just a memory. Just a memory stored in your mind. Just neurons firing in your brain. The only thing real is now. The present moment. Remember the stones."
She nodded and took a deep breath. "I remember."
"Let's retreat into Deep Being," he said. "Into awareness. Let's be the foundation. The white stone in the water. Let's observe all the other stones from there."
Addy nodded and took another deep breath, still embracing him. "I'll try."
They took several more deep breaths, sinking into Deep Being. They became their foundation. From down here, they could see the other four components above. Senses—the warmth of each other, the cold sweat, Addy's tickling hair. Their emotions—fear, grief, love. Their thoughts—of seeking solutions, of figuring things out, worrying, analyzing, overthinking. Their memories, coming and going. The nightmares—just memories. Just another stone.
"Only the now is real," Marco whispered. "You are not your thoughts. You are not your memories. You are not your feelings or senses. You are in Deep Being. Observing. Let them be."
She nodded. "Let them be," she whispered.
They lay on their backs, breathing, being aware. Just being. Resting in awareness. And they watched the memories flow away. They observed the fear fade. Until only the present moment remained.
Addy held his hand. "I lied, Poet."
He looked at her. He gasped. "You mean that time you claimed to see a pigman in High Park, you were lying?" He covered his mouth. "I'm shocked."
She punched him. "Not that! That was true. I did see a pigman in the park! Snout and everything, and he was wearing overalls and sniffing for truffles."
"You saw a fat drunk," Marco said.
"Pigman!" she insisted. "He should be added to Freaks of the Galaxy. But anyway, I'm talking about something else now. When I said my tower was taller than yours. I lied. I'm a sore loser."
"It wasn't a contest, Ads."
She grinned. "But I'll beat you next time! And even if my tower was shorter, I'm still taller than you."
He rolled his eyes. "You are not. We're the same height. I think I'm a centimeter taller, actually."
She snorted. "You wish!"
He kissed her cheek. She kissed his lips. They made gentle love, then slept in each other's arms until the morning.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Marco and Addy knelt in the Deep Being temple upon the mountain, deep in concentration, creating a mandala.
Jars of colored sand stood around them, a hundred different colors. Marco and Addy both held chak-purs,
bronze tools of Deep Being used for this holy task. Each chak-pur was conical, a slender bronze funnel filled with colored sand. Ridges lined each funnel. When tapped with another tool—a metal stick—the chak-pur released a sprinkling of colored sand. Tapping different ridges released the sand in different patterns.
"It's like decorating cakes with icing," Addy said. She licked her lips. "Mmm . . . icing."
"Except this cake is the size of a dining room table, and the icing is as intricate as a Persian rug," Marco said.
They had been working for days, spilling out colored sand, creating circles within circles, rings of decorative patterns, human figures, and animals, expanding the artwork from its center outward. The baba had asked them to add a personal touch, images that mattered to them. Marco had chosen to create little books of sand, done in reds, blues, and greens, symbolizing his love of literature. Addy, in her mandala ring, created little hot dogs.
Slowly it was taking form. The first day, the mandala had been nothing but chalk sketches on the temple floor. By now, it was a beautiful work of art, dazzling with its colors and patterns. Every few moments, Marco and Addy had to pause, refill the chak-purs with another color of sand, then return to their work, always moving outward from the center.
"Is this what it feels like when you write a book?" Addy said. "Lots of slow, careful work?"
He nodded. "It does, actually."
Addy rubbed her back. "At least you get to sit down while writing. All this kneeling is killing my back and knees. Will you give me a massage later?"
"Addy, last time I gave you a massage, you started ripping off my clothes two seconds into it." He thought for a moment. "All right. I'm definitely giving you a massage later." He sighed. "Unfortunately, we still have ten hours of work left today on this mandala."
Addy groaned. "Ten more hours? The little sand hot dogs I'm making are going to turn into little sand d—"
"Addy!" Marco flushed and brushed away her sand. "Keep the mandala civil."
"What?" Addy bristled. "It's a fertility symbol!"
Earth Honor (Earthrise Book 8) Page 13