No, she took the elevator, a calm part of his mind thought. I didn’t hear anyone on the stairs behind me, and Lexi never takes stairs if she can help it.
“An alien? You think I’m an alien?” She had moved in front of him and was shoving him repeatedly in the chest.
Will felt his mouth fall open as he struggled to think of something to say. George grinned at the unfolding drama, and Will’s fellow reporters gathered around. He thought he even caught the blinking red light of a camera in one of their hands.
“Of course I don’t think you’re an alien,” Will said in as soothing a voice as he could. “I just—”
“What you just did was tell that man”—she pointed at George—“that I am an alien. Cronos, I knew you were some kind of conspiracy nut, but I didn’t know you were absolutely insane!”
George reached out to put his arm around Lexi. “Now, young lady—”
But Lexi would have none of that. She twisted her arm up to block George’s. “Don’t you ‘young lady’ me! You’re some pathetic tabloid journalist. When my father hears about this, he’ll put you all out of business so fast you won’t even feel it come out from under you. And as for you…” She pointed a finger at Will. “If you ever come near me again, I will make your life so miserable you will regret ever knowing me.” She spun on her stiletto-heeled boot and stalked out of the office, her exit only slightly marred by her having to wait for the door to open.
“Alien, huh?” George said. “Seems more like a she-cat to me.”
It’ll be fine, Will thought as he buried his head in his hands. She’ll get her memories back, and she’ll come back to me. I hope.
Chapter 25
Present Day
Detrick stared at the screen, waiting for it to beep. He did his best to keep his thoughts blank.
Phedre told him he had no life of the mind. He didn’t know what that meant. Tegan always responded that his mind was such a fraught place that deadening it made his life easier. He wasn’t sure what that meant, either. He just knew that Tegan was nicer to him when Phedre was around. Or maybe she only seemed nicer by comparison.
He sometimes wished he had people other than Tegan and Phedre in his life—nicer people, like Bliss. She used to call him sometimes and ask about his life. She was always interested in hearing about his research, though she was less interested in the guns.
Will used to call, too, usually with research puzzles. “Find the connection,” Will would say. “I know it’s there.” Detrick once tried to explain to Will that coincidence was a statistical fact. Will didn’t believe him, but he also found some lovely coincidences, so Detrick forgave him.
The others mocked him or didn’t care. Poor Detrick, all alone in his apartment. Too scared to leave, Lexi or Jack would say. That should offend him. Tegan always raised her voice when he repeated it to her. To Detrick, it was simply an acknowledgement of fact. He was too scared to leave his apartment.
They were once his friends, or at least his fellow Transients. Detrick wondered if he should regret it, but he didn’t. He still had Tegan and his apartment and his screens and his guns. He didn’t need more than that.
Twenty Years Ago
The datapad played a little song.
Detrick cringed. He hated music. Music took mathematical perfection and tried to add emotion to it. Mathematics, he understood. Emotion, he did not. Music, he could put in neither category, so it bothered him.
Bliss must have set it up when she was here twenty-three days ago. He took a deep breath. Twenty-three beautiful days of no human interaction were about to come to an end.
He looked at the datapad. Tegan’s face appeared with a blinking light around it, and he pushed the respond button.
“We’re working for Phedre now,” she said without preamble. She had a lock of hair in front of her face, which annoyed him as much as her words.
Detrick blinked. “You don’t like Phedre. You said she was the worst person you had ever met, Transient or otherwise.”
“Yeah, I did.” Tegan tried to blow the lock of hair out of her face, but the strands only shifted slightly to the right. Or left. My left, her right. “But she’s also the only one telling us the truth right now. Did you know Roslyn and her coterie were on Arachne?”
“Yes.”
“See, no one tells us—” Tegan stopped as she processed what Detrick had said. “Wait, what? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Detrick had a hard time with emotion, but he had learned that inflection as a form of self-defense. He had made her angry, but he didn’t know how. “You told me not to tell you about Will’s research anymore. You said Will was a crazy conspiracy hound, and you didn’t need to hear his insanity spouted from two sources.”
“And you heard about Arachne from Will?”
He nodded.
“Are you nodding? I can’t see you nod when you insist on keeping the datapad flat on the table.”
Detrick held the datapad up to his face and nodded again. “Will asked me to do some research on the place Roslyn was going.”
“Well, you have to stop doing research for Will,” Tegan said.
Detrick shrugged. “Okay. I’ll call him and tell him.”
“No, don’t do that! He’ll know we’re working for Phedre!”
He put the datapad back down. “You said we are working for Phedre.”
“We are, but we don’t want Will to know.”
Detrick felt a headache forming at the base of his neck. This is getting people-y. I hate people-y things. They make me think words like people-y, and people-y isn’t a word. “Okay, I won’t tell Will. And I won’t give Will information. What should I say when he calls?”
“You know what would be really helpful?” Tegan asked. “If you could give him false information.”
His breathing seemed to echo through the apartment, though he knew it was a sonic impossibility. “I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t.” Tegan sighed. “Just don’t answer when Will calls. Can you do that?”
He nodded again.
“Detrick…”
He picked up the datapad. “Yes, I can do that. Do you need anything else?”
“Yes.” Tegan grinned, and Detrick felt a spark of warmth inside. “Send me everything you have on Arachne and keep researching. Classified and unclassified datasphere. I want to know everything there is to know about that place before I get there.”
Present Day
Beep.
Detrick jumped.
His eyes snapped to the screen that had made the noise. Aha. Someone—almost certainly Jack and Cobalt—had used the diamonds from the robbery to buy a spaceship.
“Call Tegan.”
Chapter 26
Twenty Years Ago
Roslyn’s head ached worse than she could ever remember it hurting, though she had to admit that the pain impeded her memory some. As an alien being, she was less susceptible to human diseases than the people around her. She’d had a cold or two in her time, but all the really serious conditions bypassed her. She rarely even felt symptoms like headaches or nausea, but she was beginning to understand what people who got migraines complained about.
The pain was centered behind her left eye, and with every beat of her heart, it radiated along her blood vessels into every corner of her skull. Meanwhile, the liquid lunch she’d consumed threatened to eject itself from her body with every breath. She wondered if those maladies were related to the purple rash she’d noticed on her stomach a few days ago and had spread to her arms and legs in the intervening time. Hannah had said a strange disease was affecting members of the colony, but she’d assumed she would be immune.
“Roslyn? Are you listening to me? Roslyn?” Cobalt waved a hand in front of her face. His eyebrows furrowed with concern.
I must look bad if Blueboy is worried ab
out me. She had let him drive that day and had slumped over in her seat, not capable of much more action than that for the last several hours. She straightened up in her chair, each motion sending violent spasms through her abdomen.
“Sorry.” Her voice came out as a croak. When did my throat get so dry? “What do you need?”
“We’re back.” He frowned at her for a moment. “I let you sleep because I thought you were tired, but you’re sick, aren’t you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t get sick.” Everything—the timbre of her voice, the pounding in her skull, the roiling in her stomach—belied her words, and Cobalt wasn’t an idiot.
“I think we should get you to Gavin,” he said.
She cringed, and a tear fell down her cheek. Gavin. I treated him so terribly. He shouldn’t be here. She couldn’t bear to see Gavin right now. “I want to see Jack.”
“I’ll go get him,” Cobalt said. “But you should go see Gavin straight away.”
The thoughts Blueboy’s being nice to me? and Blueboy can’t tell me what to do! clashed in her head. She pushed against her seat, forcing herself to her feet, though she wobbled a bit. “I want to see Jack,” she repeated. “It’s on the way. Then we can see Gavin.” She had no idea if Jack was on the way to Gavin. She didn’t know where Jack was.
“Do you…” Cobalt let out a polite cough. “Do you need help walking?”
“No!” Maybe. “I’m fine.” I’m not fine. She took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. The rush of air down her throat reminded her how dry it was, and the effort made her head ache.
The light in camp was dim, for which she was grateful. If someone shined a bright light in her face, she was pretty sure her eyeballs would explode. That doesn’t sound so bad. At least then it would be dark.
Cobalt followed along behind her, and she was grateful for it, though she would never tell him that. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure she wouldn’t pass out as she walked between the tents. I’ll just go see Jack, then I can sleep. She stopped and closed her eyes, swaying on her feet. A few more tears fell down her cheeks. It must be the pain.
Roslyn headed for the main research tent, the one Hannah had shown them when they first arrived, and pulled back the flap. For a second, she was blinded by the brightness of the lamps. She blinked a few times, and flashes of color splashed in her sight as her vision adjusted, but they didn’t stop her from seeing what she needed to see: Jack and Hannah locked in what could only be described as a passionate embrace.
She stood there staring at them, dumbfounded, but they were so engrossed in each other that they didn’t notice her. Of course not. The light’s all in here, so I’m not letting any in. For some reason, that thought struck her as funny, and she laughed.
That got Jack and Hannah’s attention, but Roslyn didn’t have the energy to process their responses. She dropped the tent flap before they could be anything more than startled.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. Blueboy. She reached up and clutched his hand. “I have to… Gavin?”
“I thought you wanted to see Jack.”
She laughed, a crazed sound even to her ears, and pushed his hand off her shoulder then continued along the row of tents. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cobalt flip up the tent flap. He cursed under his breath as a figure burst out past him.
“Rosie!”
Roslyn didn’t turn around. “Forget it, Jack. I’m done. We’re done. I’m going to see Gavin now.”
“Rosie, let me explain! It’s not what you think!”
“That would be a lot more convincing if you had a shirt on right now,” someone said with a sarcastic voice.
Is Blueboy taking my side? It was too much—the headache, the stomachache, the rash. Jack, Cobalt, Hannah. The tears, the pain, the dizziness. She had to stop.
I can’t stop. Jack will think I’m listening to him. Then, more distantly, she thought, I’m sick. I need to get to Gavin. She took another step forward, but the world was spinning too fast.
“Rosie!”
“Roslyn!”
As her head hit the ground, she was surprised to find it could hurt more than it previously had. Then the world went dark.
“What do you mean, ‘she’s dying’?” were the first words Roslyn heard when she awoke.
Jack. She felt as if her heart had spoken the word as she recognized the voice.
No, she told her heart. We are done with him. He’s betrayed us again and again. We’re done.
Roslyn tried to open her eyes, but even that slight motion hurt more than she would have thought possible. She whimpered and settled back against the bed. The hard pillow wasn’t doing anything to ease her headache, and the bars under the thin mattress dug into her back.
“I mean the bacteria seems specifically designed to target Transients, to attack the parts of us that are different from humans.” She knew that voice too. Gavin.
“We didn’t get sick,” Jack said, the accusation clear in his tone. “And the humans did. How could that be, if it wasn’t supposed to attack them?”
“Our anatomies are very similar to humans’, as you are well aware.” Gavin kept his voice calm and rational, but Roslyn knew him. He only got that calm when a patient was about to die, as a way of distancing himself from the situation. “And not everyone who catches the disease becomes symptomatic. As far as I can tell, our hybrid DNA helped us fight off the disease more easily. As a full-blooded Transient, Roslyn was more susceptible.”
“Okay. It’s okay.” Jack sounded as though he was trying to reassure himself. “She may die, but she’ll come back. We always come back.”
“No,” Gavin whispered.
In the moment of silence that followed, Roslyn felt as though she should care about what Gavin had said, as if it somehow affected her, but her head ached too much for her to put together how.
“What do you mean, ‘No’?” Jack spoke almost as softly as Gavin had, but his tone held a world of menace.
“I mean the disease attacks the cells that make her different from humans, the ones that let her reincarnate,” Gavin said. “If she dies of this disease, I don’t think she’s coming back.”
A clang of metal rang through the tent, then Jack yelled far too loudly, “Take it back!”
“Jack, put the scalpel down,” Gavin said, still infinitely calm. “We both know I can take you in a fight. Besides, stabbing me won’t change anything. She’ll still be dying.”
Something made a clack-clack noise against the rock floor. “You say that so calmly. I thought you loved her.”
“I do love her,” Gavin said. “Don’t you, of all people, tell me what I feel. But making a scene won’t save her. The only thing we can do is wait and hope. She might pull through this.”
Jack let out a defeated harrumph.
“Go home, Jack. Get something to eat. There’s still time.”
“I’m not leaving her.” Roslyn could picture Jack setting his jaw. He appeared devil-may-care on the outside, but when he decided to be stubborn, nothing could move him.
“Jack—”
“I’m not. Leaving. Her.” Footsteps moved toward Roslyn, a chair thunked by her bedside.
Go away, Roslyn wanted to say. I’m done with you. But her head was too heavy, and her mouth was too dry. She drifted back into the black.
Present Day
The sound of the morning wake-up call rang through the psychiatric hospital. Roslyn opened her eyes and lay in bed, unwilling to get up and face her day.
Maybe there really is something wrong with me. Maybe I’m depressed. Isn’t unwillingness to get up a sign of depression?
The edge of her sheets was wet. Great. I’m even drooling in my sleep now. When she reached up to clear her face, she realized the wetness had come from both sides. No, I’m crying in my sleep.
The dream about Old
Roslyn had hit her quite hard. She had wondered how Old Roslyn died, and now she knew. She’d caught some weird alien disease that had killed her and her ability to reincarnate. If that were true, though, how am I here? The story had begun to unravel, as Dr. Tanner had said it would, once Roslyn had the tools and medication to look through the fog.
Roslyn showered and dressed, moving so slowly she expected an orderly to come in and yell at her. All the while, tears streamed down her cheeks, tears for the old Roslyn dying on an alien moon, and tears for Current Roslyn, giving up on any belief she’d once had she could be anything other than a server.
She sat through her morning art therapy and group skills training with a sense of determined anticipation until it was finally time for her one-on-one session with the brown-eyed therapist.
“I didn’t want to talk about this in front of everybody,” Roslyn said. “They’ll think I’m crazy, and I’ve had enough of that. But I want to get better. I’m going to tell you everything that’s been going on with me.”
Chapter 27
Present Day
Jack sat in the pilot’s seat of his new spaceship and stroked the dashboard. His Rose was even red on the inside, or at least had sufficient red accents to be tasteful. “Next stop, Bellerophon.”
“Bellerophon?” Cobalt climbed out of the engine pit and sat down in the copilot’s seat. “Why are we going there?”
As he flipped the toggles above his head to release the landing brakes, Jack said, “Well, the way I figure it, we’re looking for a woman who has a spaceship and wants to kill us, right?”
Cobalt strapped himself in. “Right.”
“Well, the Transcendental Spirit or whatever—”
“Transcendent Spirit.”
“Or whatever… has got to have some decent weapons.” Jack pushed the button to initiate automatic takeoff. “So I was thinking Eurydice.”
Arachne's Web Page 16