Arachne's Web

by Elizabeth Corrigan

  “Hey, dog-walking girl!” someone with a strangely familiar voice called from behind her.

  When she spun around, she saw two identical men in blue jumpsuits jogging toward her. She didn’t have to take in the shiny black hair, honey-colored skin, and almond-shaped brown eyes to recognize Jack and Cobalt Zhao when she saw them.

  Roslyn opened and closed her mouth a few times. She had to be imagining them. Nora had known Old Roslyn, but those two had jumped out of her dream and into real life. She wondered if she were dreaming, but the dog leash Snookems was pulling on dug into her hand in that real-life way that meant she was really facing the boys she had only seen in her dreams.

  They came to a stop when they reached her. “Jack,” she said, grateful that the dreamy way she usually said the name in her head was replaced by a dumbfounded disbelief at the insanity of the situation. “Cobalt.”

  Cobalt—funny how she could tell them apart—raised his eyebrows at her. She glanced down at the name tags on their jumpsuits, which identified them as employees of a local personal cruiser repair shop. Jack’s tag spelled out his name in bold, digital lettering, but Cobalt’s read Blue.

  Oops, Roslyn thought. I need a distraction before he asks questions I can’t answer.

  So she said the first thing that came into her mind. “My name is not ‘dog-walking girl.’”

  Cobalt’s brow scrunched, and he looked about to say something—probably that his name wasn’t Cobalt—when Jack spoke up instead.

  “Well, I don’t know your name. I only know that you’re walking a dog. It seemed as good a way as any to get your attention.” He gave her a wide grin.

  Cobalt’s face returned to even neutrality. Apparently, he was going to let Jack handle the interaction. Yes, Roslyn thought, Blueboy always lets his brother do the talking.

  “You could have asked,” Roslyn said. The indignation seemed to hide her astonishment well enough. He should know my name, a deep part of her thought. We were lovers on and off for centuries. Except she wasn’t sure if that was true.

  Jack let out an exasperated sigh. “But I couldn’t get your attention that way. Look at all the people on this street.”

  Roslyn looked around at the road, empty except for the three of them, and raised an eyebrow.

  “All right, so maybe just ‘Hey, you there!’ would have sufficed.”

  “Perhaps.” Roslyn gritted her teeth. It wasn’t his fault she resented her server role or that he had played a role in her nightly fantasies until two weeks previously. “Did you want something?”

  Jack gave her his brightest smile, the one Old Roslyn had so often believed was reserved for her alone, only to find out it wasn’t. “Blue and I were having a debate, and we wanted your opinion. We were split, you see, so we needed a third.” He met her eyes, and for a moment, his smile fell, and a puzzled expression came over his face.

  “Destiny,” Cobalt said. “Jack’s a firm believer that we make our own, but I’m starting to think maybe we don’t have any choices about anything.”

  Jack snapped his fingers, and the grin returned. “That’s right. Blue’s all convinced that we’re going to die violently for our many crimes, and I say we can get away with anything if we’re determined enough.”

  “Can you?” Roslyn was disappointed to find her voice a bit breathy. “How many crimes are we talking here?”

  “More than you can imagine.” Jack’s eyes held a twinkle as they refused to meet hers.

  “Well…” Roslyn considered the question. “I guess I believe that we make our own choices in life, but sometimes, being who we are, we can’t help but go down certain paths. So while we may choose our own destinies, sometimes we don’t have a lot of control over our choices.”

  Wow, Roslyn, that was surprisingly choice-centric of you, a girl who constantly insists she has no choices.

  Jack stuck out his lower lip. “Well, that’s not helpful at all. Total cop-out.”

  Roslyn shrugged. “It’s what I’ve got.” She waited to see if they wanted anything else, but neither twin met her gaze. Her desperation to continue the conversation turned into awkward silence. She turned to walk away. “Come on, Snookems.”

  Jack let her get almost a block up the road before he called after her. “Hey, dog-walking girl!”

  Roslyn stopped.

  “What is your name?”

  Rosie, she wanted to say, because that was who she was, or who she should be, to Jack. But she wasn’t. Not to that Jack. Or am I?

  “I’m Roslyn,” she said.

  When he didn’t say anything further, she continued up the street.

  “It’s all real!” Roslyn said to Dr. Tanner at her appointment later that afternoon. “I visited Nora, and she knew the old Roslyn—said I looked just like her! And I met Jack and Cobalt, and something they said made me realize I’ve been feeling so grumpy and trapped, but I don’t have to. I can fight! I passed that test fair and square. I should be at university, and I’m going to get there.”

  Dr. Tanner didn’t look at Roslyn. She tapped her stylus on her pad several times before speaking. “Roslyn, I want you to tell me about these individuals you met, the ones you say were Jack and Cobalt.”

  “They were Jack and Cobalt. They even had name tags saying so. Well, Cobalt’s said ‘Blue,’ but they’re probably hiding out after some crazy scheme of Jack’s—”

  Dr. Tanner tsked. “I need to show you something.” She turned her datapad around, and Roslyn saw the opening credits for a vid show appear on the screen.

  “The Bellerophon Games? I don’t watch them, but Mrs. Bhanushali does. I don’t understand what they have to do with—” Roslyn cut herself off as Gavin appeared on the screen. “He’s real too! This proves what I’ve been saying! I knew—”

  “Roslyn, I’m afraid all it proves is that you may be more ill than I had realized,” Dr. Tanner said.

  Her arms and legs went cold. “What do you mean?”

  “I think it’s obvious what’s been going on. You are unhappy with your life, so you have imagined a different one for yourself. You even went to the point of cheating on a test to try to make other people believe you.”

  “I didn’t cheat! I—”

  “You said yourself that you ran into these boys on a route that you take every day, and that they wear name tags.”

  Where is she going with this? But Roslyn knew where Dr. Tanner was going. She was trying to prove that Roslyn’s memories were a lie. “Yes.”

  “And your mistress watches the Bellerophon games, which you must have seen her watching a number of times. You saw Gavin on the show and incorporated him into your fantasy.”

  “It’s not a fantasy! I didn’t make all of this up!”

  “I don’t think you did it intentionally.” Dr. Tanner’s voice took on a tranquil tone, but Roslyn didn’t find it soothing. “I thought at first that you simply needed help admitting you cheated because you were unhappy. It’s what your friend Bliss asked me to do for you.”

  “Bliss… thinks I cheated?”

  “Of course she does. Everyone knows you cheated. There’s no question of that. But I’m starting to think maybe you don’t realize you cheated. Maybe these delusions go deeper, and you honestly believe them. That’s very concerning.”

  Roslyn’s breath came faster, and she grasped for anything to hold onto. “What about Nora? She knew me from before, from my past life. I recognized her.”

  “Oh, Roslyn, surely by now you’ve realized you can’t trust your own mind. But I did do a little research into your mother. She wasn’t always a server. She used to own a small antiques store, but she gave that up when she fell in love with your father.”

  Roslyn gripped the armrests of her chair and shook her head over and over. “No, Nora said she went to Arachne, like she did in my dreams. And it wasn’t my mother. It was me.”


  Dr. Tanner’s brow furrowed, and the corners of her mouth turned down. “Roslyn, I need you to listen to me. None of what you’re imagining is real. It’s all a delusion. A fantasy. I can help you, but you need to let me.”

  Roslyn rocked in her chair as tears stung the corners of her eyes. I can’t be crazy. Can I? She knew Dr. Tanner had to be right. Reincarnation wasn’t real, and she could easily have seen those boys and pulled them into her fantasy. With the revelation about her mother, and not even Bliss believing her, she had to acknowledge Dr. Tanner’s version of events made a lot more sense than hers.

  “What do I need to do?” Roslyn’s voice was small and unsteady.

  “I’m going to give you a prescription. I want you to have it filled right away. Tomorrow morning, I would like to have you check into the hospital so we can get these delusions under control.”

  “All right.” Roslyn felt defeated, and just half an hour earlier, she had felt on top of the world.

  That night, Roslyn dreamed again.

  Twenty Years Ago

  Roslyn looked out over the rocky black surface of Arachne and wondered if she had made a mistake coming there. She wasn’t concerned about the forbidding landscape and makeshift tents that would be her home for the duration of the exploration. The two men standing to either side of her were what concerned her.

  Traveling with both Gavin and Jack in the Zhaos’ small ship had been intense. She had tried to keep her distance from both of them, which was completely impossible, so she had spent most of the trip in silence. The pair were civil to each other, of course. Though they were rivals for her affection and complete opposites in temperament, they were both Transients and, as such, understood each other better than either would ever understand a human. For his part, Cobalt had spent the entire trip glaring at Roslyn, probably because he blamed her for having to give up his bunk to Gavin and share with his brother.

  “You must be the new recruits!” A beautiful woman with a blond ponytail came over to greet them.

  Funny how I’m always more likely to notice a woman’s attractiveness when Jack is around, Roslyn thought. She didn’t want to be a jealous shrew, but history had taught her that sometimes beautiful women really were out to get her, paranoia or no. Why am I putting myself through this again? Oh, right, the adventure. And because apparently I’m a glutton for punishment. And because she loved Jack, even when she hated herself for it.

  The woman’s blue eyes sparkled as she eyed each of them. She paused for a moment before choosing Roslyn to hold her hand out to. “I’m Dr. Hannah Carriger, the leader of the expedition.”

  Roslyn returned the woman’s handshake, trying to keep a frown off her face. “I’m—”

  “You look awfully young to be the leader of the expedition.” Jack inserted himself between Roslyn and Dr. Carriger.

  Right. He likes to do the talking, and Blueboy always lets him, Roslyn thought. Gotta remind him that’s not how it works around me.

  “Hannah, was it?” Jack’s smile was all charm, and Roslyn felt whatever hope she had that things would be different that time die in her chest.

  Dr. Carriger did not look impressed. “Doctor Hannah Carriger, yes.”

  “Forgive my associate here. He thinks he’s charming.” Roslyn’s sickly-sweet tone reminded her of Tegan, and she wasn’t sure that was a good thing. “I’m Dr. Roslyn Turin, archaeologist. This is Dr. Gavin Ibori. Medical doctor, that is. We heard you needed help in the clinic.”

  “We do.” Dr. Carriger pursed her lips and considered Gavin for a moment before adding, “Any expedition always has the danger of new maladies, and a doozy of a bug has hit a few of our members.”

  Roslyn nodded. She wasn’t really worried about illness. The other Transients sometimes caught human diseases, but they were half human while she was a full-blooded… whatever they were. “Cobalt Zhao answers to the title of ‘mechanical genius,’ so if you’ve got any machinery on the fritz, just let him know. And Jack…” She sighed, hating to describe his skill set when she was annoyed with him. “Jack can do anything.”

  “Except talk to educated women, apparently,” Dr. Carriger said.

  Jack yelped, but Roslyn smiled. She was going to like Dr. Carriger. “We all have our strengths and weaknesses.”

  Dr. Carriger held out an arm toward the camp and headed in that direction. “I’ll give you the tour.” She tossed a grin back at Roslyn. “But first I’d like to show you something. I’m an archaeologist, too, so I know how excited you are we finally get to uncover something completely unique. Something I might even call alien.”

  Cobalt coughed behind Roslyn, and she caught Gavin giving him a dirty look.

  “Alien?” Roslyn asked. “Do you mean that literally? Do you think we’ve found our first evidence of alien life?”

  “Well, I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. A lot of work still needs to be done. I haven’t ruled out the possibility that a group of humans landed here in the early days of our arrival and died out. After all, I don’t know every Old Earth language. That would be impossible.”

  Not so impossible, Roslyn thought. Her jealousy lessened a bit at having an advantage over the other archaeologist. Though I suppose she didn’t have the fortune of living on Old Earth for centuries.

  “But the artifacts we’re finding don’t look like any technology from the days of the migration.” Dr. Carriger lifted the flap of a tent and gestured for them to enter. “And our preliminary chronology estimates indicate they predate any human settlement on Orpheus.”

  Roslyn stepped inside the dark tent, and at first, all she could see were a few glowing green spots hovering over what appeared to be the outline of a table.

  Dr. Carriger said, “Lights,” and as the voice sensor responded to her command, Roslyn could see the glowing green spots were sigils carved into stone.

  “See?” Dr. Carriger’s eyes were wide, her face flushed. “These stones appear to be some kind of technology. We’re not sure what each of them does yet, but human devices are made out of metal or plastic, not solid stone!”

  “May I hold one?” Roslyn asked.

  Dr. Carriger seemed to have anticipated Roslyn’s question, because she was already handing her a pair of gloves. “I know I don’t have to tell you to be careful.”

  Roslyn reached out and picked up an egg-shaped rock she could hardly believe was a device of some kind. She eyed the symbols and begged them to become familiar to her. Demitrius had taught her all of the language once then had taken it away until such time as he deemed her worthy of it.

  A tear formed in her eye. The egg, whatever it was, was her heritage, and being so close to it made her want to know where she came from more than she ever had before.

  “It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” Dr. Carriger said, but her voice was distant as a stronger voice rose in Roslyn’s mind.

  “Elleks. Tsufo. Kel. Repeat.” It was Demitrius’s voice, and he was identifying the symbols.

  “Elleks,” she whispered. “Tsufo. Kel.” The symbols flashed in her mind, and she recognized them among the symbols in front of her. The language is coming back to me!

  Before she could appreciate it, pain erupted in her skull. She barely had the sense to place the precious artifact back on the table before she clutched her head and screamed.

  “Roslyn!” Gavin’s arm caught her as she fell. She would know Gavin’s arm anywhere.

  “Rosie!” And Jack. “Rosie!”

  She held onto his voice, the panic in his tone her only solace, until she passed out.

  Present Day

  Shut up, Snookems, Roslyn thought as she woke up. She could hear the dog before she even opened her eyes.

  Really, though, she was grateful to the dog for rousing her. Her splitting headache was only a fraction of the one she’d had in the dream. She wondered if Old Roslyn had died of it. The pain had cert
ainly felt the way she imagined an aneurysm might feel.

  Except Old Roslyn didn’t die. There is no Old Roslyn. It’s all some delusion I made up. But the words didn’t ring true. The dreams felt so real.

  Snookems was still barking, and Roslyn’s head needed a moment to clear before she realized someone was knocking on her third-story window.

  Had she been more awake and in less pain, she might have been frightened, but in her muddled state, the logical thing was to pull back the curtain and see who was on the other side.

  The light was dim, but Roslyn would recognize the thin frame and devil-may-care smile anywhere. Jack.

  Chapter 17

  Present Day

  “She knew my name, Jack. My real name.”

  Jack didn’t understand why Cobalt kept repeating that. I mean, sure, rando dog-walker-girl Roslyn called him Cobalt when his tag clearly read Blue, but Cobalt and Blue are synonyms. Cronos knows I use them interchangeably.

  “I seriously doubt the dog walker is a secret corporation spy,” Jack said.

  He didn’t know what had made him call to the girl on the street. Usually, he and his brother were content to manage their arguments themselves, especially when they were on the run from the OBI and ZimmerCorp. Jack didn’t know why his and Cobalt’s faces weren’t broadcast all over the moon, but he decided to be grateful that Cobalt’s plan to hide out as cruiser repairmen was working.

  “Or maybe you don’t want to believe it,” Cobalt said, the accusation clear in his tone.

  “Why wouldn’t I want to believe it?” Jack asked, though he knew Cobalt was right.

  Something about the girl had called to him. It wasn’t her straight brown hair or her I-don’t-give-a-crap-about-my-clothes-because-I’m-a-server attire. He had met hundreds of prettier girls who put effort into their appearance. Maybe he was fascinated by the way she talked back to him or the way she put serious thought into a question posed to her by some guy on the street.

  “I don’t know.” Cobalt ran his hands through his hair. “All I know is you’ve spent every minute since we got back using your not-inconsiderable hacking skills to research this girl. That’s not like you.”