Arachne's Web

by Elizabeth Corrigan

  Table of Contents

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part II

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Part III

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Arachne’s Web

  Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Corrigan All rights reserved.

  First Edition: 2019

  Editor: Red Adept Editing

  Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  To the Towson Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Group that was

  Without you, this book would not exist.

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Present Day

  Roslyn Turin sank into the plush white chair in her psychologist’s office. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

  Dr. Tanner set her datapad on her streamlined silver desk. She was younger than Roslyn had expected a doctor to be, in her late twenties at most, and prettier, with shiny brown hair, tanned skin, and long-lashed brown eyes. “And what causes these thoughts?”

  Roslyn stared out the panoramic window behind her therapist. At that hour of the evening, the planet Orpheus hung large in the purple sky, and the crescent moon of Daedalus glimmered in the background. “It all started with the tests for university. You’re from off-world, so maybe you don’t know. All graduating students on Ariadne, even the servers, are required to take them, even though only the most talented and brilliant students will perform well enough to get scholarships.”

  Her eyes darted back to her therapist as she folded her hands together then separated them again. “I knew I had no chance of getting in. I mean, I’m good enough at school but nothing special. And I’m not rich like my friend Bliss. My parents are dead, but they were born servers. This was my only chance to do something else—my only chance to be free.”

  Dr. Tanner pushed a button on her datapad, and it made a small chirping noise as it lit up. “And you were disappointed you didn’t get in.”

  “No, that’s the thing.” The faux-leather cushion squeaked as Roslyn moved forward in her chair. “I did get in. I tested off the charts in art history and archaeology, though I’ve never studied either subject. I’ve always been good at drawing but not enough to do it professionally. When I saw all these paintings I’d never seen before in my life, I suddenly knew which of the old masters had painted them and in what style—Monet, Picasso, Aderfell, Ciorelli, Inoue.”

  She gestured furiously with her hands. “And archaeology! Most of those techniques are totally outdated now since we’re light-years away from the ancient civilizations on Earth. But I knew about the techniques of digging artifacts and authenticating them as well as more recent methods of data analysis. It was like I had held objects from hundreds of years ago in my hands and appraised them.”

  Roslyn caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window. She looked as crazy as she sounded, her normally pale face flushed with excitement, strands of straight brown hair hanging loose from her messy bun. Even her hazel eyes held a glint of the demonic in them. “And that’s not even the craziest part.”

  Dr. Tanner didn’t look as if what she had heard so far perturbed her at all. If anything, she seemed mildly interested, as if Roslyn had described a new restaurant, not an experience that defied all reason. “And what is, as you say, the craziest part?”

  Roslyn raised a helpless hand then dropped it to the armrest. “I have these dreams—dreams where I’m someone else.”

  Dr. Tanner reached out and straightened the holographic photo emitter on her desk. It displayed her standing next to a handsome blond man with his arms wrapped around a child who had her brown hair and his blue eyes. “And who do you think you are in these dreams?”

  “Somebody else. Somebody rich. Somebody confident.” Roslyn picked at the hangnail on her thumb. “It’s stupid. I mean, that’s not my life. I know it’s not. I was born a server on Ariadne, and when that happens, you stay a server on Ariadne. Really, I should be grateful for that, because I get all kinds of benefits people on Orpheus or the other moons don’t have. I get everything I need to live on and two weeks’ vacation every year to one of the local resorts. Crime on Ariadne is lower than anywhere else. I get full health care benefits. If I were a factory worker on Daedalus who needed to see a therapist, I wouldn’t be able to.”

  “That’s not—”

  “And I know I haven’t always been grateful for this.” Roslyn pulled harder at the loose piece of skin. “I used to get all up in arms about how we should be free. I blame my best friend, Bliss. I mean, really, I’m her personal server, but her parents let us play together when we were little, and she’s more like a sister than anything else. That’s always given me a fair degree of privilege. Like, she gives me all her old clothes when she replaces her wardrobe every season. Which means my clothes are always a year out of date, but they’re a lot nicer than what I could afford on my clothing stipend, and I can save that money instead. Apparently, it gave me the idea I was as good as the Bhanushalis, and I know that’s wrong.”

  “I know you think—”

  “My dad died less than a year ago, and I’ve had to grow up a lot since then.” Roslyn yanked, and her hangnail came free. “I have to learn to take care of myself. Even with my savings, I’m never going to have the opportunity to go somewhere else, and even if I did, what would I do? Bliss is off at university, which means that while she’s gone, I spend all my time taking care of her dog. What kind of future would I have anywhere else?” She realized her cuticle was oozing blood and stuck her thumb in her mouth, finally giving Dr. Tanner the opportunity to speak.

  “Roslyn.” Her voice was firm but not unkind. “I want to hear all about your life, and I will need a proper history from you, but first, in order for me to help you, I need you to tell me about
your dreams.”

  Roslyn sucked on her thumb for a few seconds then removed it from her mouth. “Right. The dreams.” She examined her cuticle. It throbbed, pulsing white and red, but it had stopped bleeding. “I’m this other woman. I mean, she looks like me, and she sounds like me, and she has my name, but… her whole life, it’s like nothing I’ve experienced.”

  Dr. Tanner picked up a stylus and made notes on her datapad. “What is her life like?”

  “She’s… an antiques dealer, I think. She appraises art and all kinds of old computers and things. Just like…” Roslyn ran her finger along her thumb where the hangnail used to be, looking for remaining bits of loose skin.

  “Just like you did in your tests.” Dr. Tanner tapped her stylus against her lips. “If you did well enough on those tests to get a scholarship, why aren’t you at university?”

  Roslyn dropped her hands in her lap and flopped back in her chair. “Because Dr. Sienko didn’t believe me. He’s the head of our school board. He’s friends with the Bhanushalis and has always looked down on me because he thinks I’m an upstart server girl. So when he saw my name come up on the scholarship list, he investigated it very closely. Since I never took any classes in art history, he accused me of cheating—which I didn’t, unless stealing answers from a past life is against the rules.”

  Dr. Tanner frowned. “Is that what you think these dreams are? Memories of a past life?”

  Roslyn scanned the knickknacks on the silver end table to her left. The odd symbols on a spherical metal ball at the end of the table caught her attention, but she couldn’t quite place why. Probably some ancient language that came with the rest of my archaeology knowledge. “I don’t know. If they are, they must be from a recent life. That Roslyn girl had a shop in Rhodes, and the town was only built twenty or so years ago. Besides, she looks exactly the same as me and has the same name. That wouldn’t happen with reincarnation.”

  She picked up a red cube with black diamonds on the side and studied it. “But the thing is, I know everything about her. She has a journalist brother named Will who lives on Orpheus. She lives with her boyfriend, Gavin. He’s a doctor, a celebrated surgeon. Her whole life is perfect, yet she’s missing something.”

  “I think that’s very important.” Dr. Tanner’s datapad made a few more blipping noises.

  “It is?” Roslyn put down the cube and ran her fingers over the stones in the small, rectangular Zen garden.

  “Yes. Don’t you see, Roslyn?” Dr. Tanner’s voice remained calm. “You’re unhappy with your life. You know you’re quite fortunate, but you still feel something is missing. You create this world where you have everything you imagine you want, and you still feel the same emptiness. I think this feeling of isolation is what we need to work on. We can find ways to fill it together. What do you think?”

  Roslyn lifted the small rake and combed the sand. “You could be right. But it doesn’t explain how I know about art. And it doesn’t explain the other dreams.”

  “Other dreams?”

  Focusing on creating straight lines in the grains around the rocks, Roslyn nodded. “They come after the ones about Other Roslyn. They’re… darker, scarier. I’m in a dimly lit room, and a deep male voice speaks to me in a language I don’t recognize. As he speaks, strange runes made of blue light flash in front of me, but I don’t recognize them from anything the other Roslyn has studied. I can’t understand his words, but I know the voice is telling me, ordering me, to read these symbols.”

  She cocked her head to the side as her gaze fell back on the metal sphere near the far end of the table. Now I know where I’ve seen them. “They look like this!” She whipped her head around to look at Dr. Tanner. “I’ve never seen these symbols anywhere but inside my head. Where did you get this?”

  “I’m not sure.” Dr. Tanner stood up and walked around her desk, her stiletto heels making small ripping noises as they snagged the burgundy carpet. Leaning over and peering at the sphere, she said, “Oh, that. I got it from some bric-a-brac dealer back on Orpheus. He tried to sell it as an alien device I could unlock if I found the proper code.” She laughed as if she didn’t believe such a thing were possible. “I figured it was either a relic from some forgotten civilization or a prop from a science fiction movie. Either way, I liked it, and it was cheap, so I bought it for my office.”

  “Do you know what this means?” Roslyn’s heart beat faster. “This is the first evidence I’ve had my dreams are real!”

  Dr. Tanner tsked and leaned back against her desk. “Now, Roslyn. I would not be doing you any favors if I encouraged these thoughts you have that your dreams are somehow memories. Most likely, you have simply seen an object similar to this and have incorporated the symbols into your dream. What we must do is figure out why your unconscious is creating these dreams and what the images mean to you. But first I need you to understand and accept the false nature of these visions. And to that end, I have a homework assignment for you.”

  Setting the sphere back on the table, Roslyn said, “Okay.”

  Dr. Tanner smiled. “Every time you have one of these dreams or every time you find yourself believing they might be real, I want you to repeat to yourself that they are manifestations of your discontentment. After that, you should remind yourself of all the positive things in your life.”

  Roslyn sank back in her chair. “I can do that, I guess. But wouldn’t it be better to investigate? To see if I can find any evidence of those dreams being real?”

  “No, Roslyn. Our goal is to make you more content with yourself and your life. Attempting to reinforce your fantasies won’t help with that.” Dr. Tanner picked up her datapad and made a note. “Investigating the veracity of your dreams will only make you focus on them more.”

  Roslyn glanced at the sphere. She wanted to argue, but she didn’t think Dr. Tanner would listen. I’ll just have to look into the other Roslyn’s life on my own. When I find out she really existed, Dr. Tanner will realize I’m telling the truth.

  Chapter 2

  Present Day

  “Trains in space. There’s just something fundamentally wrong with that.” Jack Zhao stared at the metallic wall where a window would be on a real train and slumped back in his seat. “I mean, how do they even work?”

  Cobalt’s nose was buried so deeply in his datapad that his only visible feature was his shiny black hair. “Must we have this conversation again? The stations orbit the moons—and Orpheus, of course—and the tracks rotate to keep the route constant. The hull is made of inurdium, which is light and sturdy enough to withstand the pressure. You know all this.”

  Jack did know. He’d sat through the same science classes as Cobalt—and that was a lot of science classes because Daedalus had been the center of engineering for the system since the human race started mining inurdium there generations ago. He’d stayed awake through enough history classes to know humans had developed the technology to travel to Orpheus after destroying their own planet, Earth, yet a central part of him couldn’t shake the awe he felt at humans traveling between the stars.

  And what kind of word is inurdium, anyway?

  He kicked Cobalt, and that time, his brother looked up. Jack suspected the creases at the corners of Cobalt’s almond-shaped dark eyes and the set of his frown matched Jack’s in the way only an identical twin’s could. He waved his hand at the datapad. “What’s so much more interesting than me, anyway?”

  “At the moment? Just about everything.”

  And he’s back to ignoring me. Jack wondered how his twin could be so stolid. He wouldn’t be able to go five minutes without telling Cobalt what he was upset about. After kicking the base of Cobalt’s seat a few times, he reached over and grabbed the datapad out of his hand.

  “Wha—?” Cobalt’s eyebrows went up, but before Jack had flipped the device to face him, Cobalt had crossed his arms and sat back in his seat.

  Ja
ck flicked his finger across the datapad to get the title of Cobalt’s choice in literature. “The technical manual for the Wingspan-553E?” Technical manuals indeed. Why does my brother have to be so boring? But at least he’s got good taste. Wait a minute…

  “Hey, is this what you’re going to get with your share of the loot?”

  Cobalt’s voice dropped to a whisper. “No, I’m not going to get anything with my share of the loot, because we’re going to be in jail.”

  “You worry too much. We’re not going to jail. We’ve done this dozens of times.” Jack glanced down at the diagram of the personal spacecraft still visible on Cobalt’s datapad. “Hey, does this use a Cleophite engine? Because I’m seriously reconsidering my opinion of it as a tier-1 vessel if it does.”

  Cobalt snatched his device out of Jack’s hand. “Shoplifting from Imri’s store and hotwiring a few piloters is not the same as robbing a train.” He darted a glance at the door to their private compartment.

  “I know. This is going to be so much better. Ten million units in diamond bars. We’re going to be rich.”

  “Why, Jack? Why do we need to do this? We had a good thing going for us on Daedalus. Mom and Dad’s ship repair business was thriving, and we had steady jobs ahead of us.”

  Jack had to admire Cobalt’s last-ditch effort to talk him out of it. But how can I make him understand? He would be content to repair other people’s engines for all eternity. “I had to get out, Blue.”

  Cobalt shook his head. “You could have gone to Orpheus, to university. You scored higher than anyone on Daedalus on your tests, though you haven’t paid attention to a single lesson since Ms. Aerlin brought a tarantula to class in the third form. You could have gotten a job working on any of the spacecraft that came through the shop. You could have traveled anywhere. Why was grand larceny your only option?”

  “I…” I don’t know how to explain it. It’s all over my skin any time I think about the future. It’s happening right now. It’s like electricity—or ants. Like electric ants crawling in my skin, demanding I do something extraordinary, something insane, something no one else would do. “You don’t have to do it. You can sit here while I go do it. You’ll have plausible deniability.”