Just then, footsteps were heard down the hall.
Joel looked at Brock and Pieter. “Molly’s back,” he told them. “Go ahead and take Crash down to the ship. We can explain on the way.”
Just as the boys were guiding the stretcher out of the room and into the main suite, Molly came rushing to the door, a look of horror on her face. “Tell me this isn’t happening,” she pleaded.
Joel rushed to her and put his hands on her upper arms, holding her in place as Brock and Pieter moved around her and continued with their task.
Molly watched as Crash was levitated past her.
Joel talked as her eyes followed the stretcher. “It’s okay, Molly. He’s going to be fine. He just knocked himself out. He has a bump on his head, and small laceration; there’s no indication of serious damage.”
He relaxed his grip on her, and she turned around, watching Crash leave.
“But, I – ” she started.
Joel didn’t know whether to touch her again or not. His hand hesitated over her shoulder before he pulled it back.
“He’s okay. They’re taking him to The Empress so that Emma can put him in a med dock and fix him up. Sean says he’ll recover just fine without it, but I think they wanted a chance to show off what all this tech can do.” He smiled a little, trying to lighten the mood.
Molly turned to look at him, tears forming in her eyes. “Joel. I saw him on the floor, with blood coming out of his head.”
Joel frowned. “What? When?”
“During one of my visions,” she explained. A tear escaped and trickled down her face. “I thought he was dead.”
Joel wrapped his arms around her, and she couldn’t hold back the tears.
“Joel, I’m scared. I’m scared for these people. I’m scared I can’t protect them. I’m scared that something worse is going to happen.”
He rubbed her back, trying to soothe her. Her sobbing continued.
“And I’m scared of what is happening to me…”
Joel stayed where he was; not talking, not trying to figure it out for her. Just being there, as Molly sobbed quietly in his arms.
Chapter 14
Gaitune-67, Arlene’s residence
Arlene pulled her truck up to the far side of the house. The house had been there since they first settled on the asteroid, built for the first settlers to quietly start creating a community – a community that would keep to themselves and not be in contact with the rest of the system, so that Bethany Anne’s secret would remain safe.
Arlene hopped out of the truck, leaving her gear in the back, and headed straight into the house via the two doors of the airlock. Once inside, she took off her jacket, and threw it on the sofa in the living room. She left her boots on and marched through.
The whole house was sparse – one might say spartan, but for a Sphinx basket over in the far corner of the room. Arlene didn’t hang about. She knew Lance wanted a report. She headed over to the paneled wall and pushed it in, opening the secret door into her comm room beyond.
She stepped inside and breathed a sigh of relief just to be back home. The control room was her familiar place; the place that reminded her about her connection with humanity, and the Empire, and life on the ArchAngel. Sure, she had volunteered to come here with her family in the early days, but her visits back to the ArchAngel for training were some of the best times of her life.
She headed straight for the console, and sat down in the invisible, melding chair that materialized around her. She hit the CONNECT button.
Moments later, her call was routed through the Etheric, and connected with the ArchAngel. Then the General was alerted. After a minute or two, the holo unfolded, putting the two into a conference call.
“Greetings, Arlene,” Lance said, his young face looking back at her. “How is the rock treating you?”
Arlene bobbed her head from side to side. “Oh, you know. Same old,” she said politely. Lance detected that despite her lackluster response, she was secretly pleased that Gaitune had finally come into play after all these years.
“I have news,” she told him.
Lance sat down in his console chair and grabbed his cigar. It looked like it had already been pretty chewed up. He didn’t move to put it in his mouth.
Arlene began her report. “Well, as you know, I’ve been in touch with ADAM since he first heard about her… developments. The meditation was helping her take control of some of the shifting, but, as time wore on, she seemed to become more and more powerful.”
Lance frowned. “Do we know where the power is coming from?” he asked, not looking up from the cigar he was handling.
Arlene nodded, knowing that Lance already suspected the answer. “Yes. Yes, she is drawing from the Etheric.” Arlene shook her head. “The only thing I can think of is the nanocytes are allowing her to do it.” She sighed, and Lance could tell there was more.
He leaned in a little closer, intrigued. “So… what else?” he asked.
Arlene straightened her posture a little. “It seems she’s able to shift through dimensions — similar to the old Estarian rituals for ascension.”
She paused.
Lance waited.
“But… she also mentioned Bethany Anne.”
Lances eyes flew wide. He readjusted his position in his seat, leaning his hand on the armrest, and cocking his head to one side to try and hear better.
“How? I mean… how is that even possible?” he said, his voice catching in a cough.
Arlene shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. It’s like she’s using the Estarian technique to access the Etheric. I mean, in all the time I spent with Bethany Anne researching the Etheric, I was never able to find a connection between the other realms and the Etheric.”
She paused, and went quiet.
“I don’t suppose she ever mentioned anything to you? About other realms?” she pressed.
Lance shook his head while taking a deep breath and looking off into the distance. “No. I mean, I know she and Michael were working on developing their abilities and skills by drawing on the Etheric, and of course moving in and out of it; but there was never any talk of them seeing anything else…”
His voice trailed off.
“I suppose,” he said finally, “it might be possible they just didn’t share it with anyone.” Lance brought his attention back to the call. “I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time she was careful about keeping certain information quiet for the sake of security.”
There was a long pause between the two. Arlene’s eyes fell to the console in front of her. There was a thin film of dust over the surface. She idly traced her finger through it, making a pattern, while they contemplated their next move.
Eventually Lance spoke. “Giles is on board.” Arlene looked up. “I have a meeting with him later on today. I’ll run it by him, and see if he has any idea.”
Arlene smiled. “He’s back?” she asked, her face brightening.
Lance nodded. “Yeah. He’s… passing through.”
She rolled her eyes. “That boy is always passing through!” she exclaimed.
Lance bobbed his head, and then shook it while fiddling with his cigar. “You know,” he said smiling, “I’ll never understand why he insists on looking so old. He don’t look anything like a boy.”
Arlene chuckled. “At the academy, we always assumed it was reverse vanity or something.”
Lance chuckled. “Well, whatever it is. If he can figure this conundrum out, it may just make up for all the years of funding I’ve sunk into his education and ‘research’.” He made quotation marks in the air with his fingers as he said the last word.
Arlene knew only too well what the General meant. She’d been along on one of his ‘research’ projects, which mostly involved hanging out with a small tribe in the middle of a non-space-going system, drinking their elixir of life night after night.
She smiled, shaking her head. “Well, give him my best, then. And tell him I’
m still waiting for him to publish that paper from our last trip.”
The General dropped his cigar and straightened up. “I will. I’ll let you know if we learn anything that can help with the Bates situation. In the meantime, though,” his voice returned to serious work mode, “keep an eye on her as best you can. We don’t know what caused this, or what it means. I think we both understand that in military terms, this is potentially either a threat or a weapon; we’d be foolish to consider it otherwise.”
Arlene nodded solemnly. “I understand. I’ll be around,” she confirmed.
Lance nodded and held up his hand in a wave before ending the call.
Arlene sat quietly in her little control room a bit longer, considering the conversation and remembering her time with Giles. Eventually, she picked up the empty mocha cup she had left on the console the morning before last, and ambled out into the house’s kitchen.
Onboard the ArchAngel, General Reynolds’s Office
Giles strode through the open door to the General’s office suite and glanced around. There was no one in the main room, but he could hear movement in the office area.
He took another step inside and hesitated.
A moment later, Lance appeared, his boyishly young face the same as it had been when Giles was a kid.
“Hello, G-man!” Lance greeted him, walking into the room and shaking his hand before embracing him warmly.
“Hello, Uncle Lance. How are you?” Giles returned the one-armed hug and the manly patting on the back.
“Good. Goooood,” the General responded, releasing Giles from his hug. “How are you, young man?” he asked, looking Giles up and down. “I hear you had a close call out in the Terroc regions a few months back?”
Giles nodded, his eyes looking suddenly old as he scratched at the back of his head. “Yeah. Yeah, it was a rough time. I was lucky, though.” He paused, bringing his eyes up to meet the General’s. “And I appreciate you pulling a few strings to get me out of there. Really. Thank you, General.”
Lance waved a hand, and put his arm around the boy. “Don’t mention it. I’d never hear the last of it from your father if I’d left you there to rot.” He walked Giles over to the sofas and offered him a seat. Then he headed over to the tray of drinks.
Giles bobbed his head as he sat down. “I heard that my mother said to leave me there and let me learn my lesson about wandering into hostile territories.” He wore a half-smile, and his eyes seemed tinged with sadness.
The General turned around, having poured a Scotch, and walked over to hand it to him. “You know that’s just her way of saying she wished you’d stay home and out of trouble.”
Giles took the drink, and nodded his thanks. “Yeah, I guess,” he agreed. “I know she means well.”
The General smiled. “Barb is from a different age. Survival was all-important back then - before the nanocytes, and so on. People had to be more careful. More wary. Plus, you know what she went through.”
Giles nodded. He knew the General made sense, and yet…
“I dunno. I always feel like she’s judging my lifestyle choice.”
The General poured himself a Scotch and turned around, a big grin on his face. “My boy, everyone is judging your lifestyle choice!”
The two of them laughed, breaking the seriousness of the conversation. They raised their glasses and took their first sip.
“Good to see you, you nomadic hippie-ghost hunter,” the General told the middle-aged-looking professor.
Giles smiled. “You too, Uncle.”
The General regarded the man in front of him and shook his head, smiling. “You know, I still don’t understand why you had your nanocytes reprogrammed to make you look old,” he remarked quietly, as if musing to himself.
Giles grinned back at Lance. “I don’t look old. I look forty!”
The General nodded. “Yes. Forty. I never did understand that.”
Giles shrugged and leaned back in the sofa, resting his tumbler on his leg and holding it with two fingers.
“Well, my father sits behind a desk, sheltered in this palace of a ship. He never need interact with anyone from a culture he doesn’t understand. And outside the Etheric Empire, age counts for something; it’s sacred. It’s respected.”
Lance looked genuinely curious, his jesting subsided. “You mean you find your research easier when people don’t assume you’re a kid?”
Giles nodded once. “Precisely what I’m saying.”
Lance chuckled, pulled a fresh cigar out of his pocket, and popped it in his mouth before sitting on the other sofa.
Giles turned in his seat to face him. “Have you seen my father recently?” he asked.
The General’s tone became almost chatty. “Yes, he and Barb were around for supper the other week. He’s embarrassed about his golf swing, and your mother is poking at all kinds of projects and investigations we have ongoing in the various systems.”
“Ha!” Giles exclaimed. “Just like Mom; she never could leave anything alone.”
Lance nodded, almost solemnly. “Yes. And sometimes we have to reel her back in to keep her safe. And keep her from starting a galactic war… but it’s all par for the course.”
Giles shook his head. “She’s such a hypocrite!” he mused, looking into his Scotch glass. “Well, I hope she’s not giving you too much trouble.”
The General chuckled. “Not at all, chap. I’m glad we have her on the team,” he assured him.
Giles’s curiosity was burning, and he was dying to find out what he’d missed since he was last in with the General for a briefing.
“So I’m assuming you didn’t have ADAM bring me up here just to do small talk?”
The General took a deep breath, his demeanor shifting again into work-mode. “No. You guessed right,” he confirmed. “Of course, I’d like the usual update on your travels and investigations; but first,” he got up and moved over to the holo in the middle of the side wall, “I wonder if I can ask for your expert opinion on something?”
Giles shuffled forward onto the edge of his seat, placing the Scotch glass on the glass coffee table in front of him.
“Of course, sir.”
Lance smiled at the ‘sir’ part. Having watched Giles grow up on this very ship, and now having the man in front of him calling him ‘sir’ as soon as they got down to business – he couldn’t help but be amused at the cultural norms.
“ADAM, could you put what we know about Molly’s situation onscreen, please?”
The holoscreen opened out as an array of several screens. Lance pulled one out and pushed it over for Giles to see.
“These are the neuroscans we took when she was in the pod doc. She was brought to us after being shot.”
Giles looked up, a little concerned. “And this is the operative you recruited for Gaitune?” he confirmed.
Lance nodded. “Yes. The same one.”
Giles studied the screen and flicked through the time-lapse layers, watching the repair happen. Then he quickly flicked through to the final scan. His eyes widened a little, and his head moved backward in shock.
“You notice something?” Lance asked.
Giles glanced up, and then returned his eyes to the scan. “Er. Yes…” He hesitated, a little distracted.
Lance waited.
Giles finally looked up, and turned the holo so Lance could view it, too.
“See this area of the brain here?” he pointed at an area in the middle of the head. Then, using his thumb and forefinger, he pulled the image out, and expanded it into a three dimensional representation. He turned the image of the color-mapped brain while Lance watched carefully. Giles expanded it again, and pointed into the temporal lobe area.
“This area here is more active than in a normal human. It’s associated with various psychic phenomena, ranging from the Seers of the Sandrahine, through to the Shamans of Earth – even the Ascending Estarians register this area of their brains as be
ing more active than in normal brains.”
He sat back, allowing the General to study the scan data longer. Lance didn’t look up. “So you’re telling me that her physiology is changed? As a result of the pod doc?”
Giles pursed his lips. “I can’t tell from this if it is a result of the pod doc or not. I mean, her whole brain was shut down at the beginning of the scan.”
He flipped the time code back to the beginning to show Lance the contrast. “This means that we can’t know if she already had the activity in her brain when it was functioning normally, or whether it was a result of the enhancement that the pod doc created. Though if that were the case, I suspect we would have seen more instances of it before now…” His voice faded a little as he considered something else.
Lance noticed Giles was thinking, and looked over at him before perching on the seat next to him.
Giles realized the General was waiting for him to explain.
“I think the other thing to consider,” he said, looking over at Lance, “is that perhaps death was the thing that triggered this awakening of activity.” Giles shrugged, showing he wasn’t attached to the idea. “Of course,” he tipped his head slightly as he explained, “there are countless documented cases of people coming back with enhanced cognitive function in certain areas - especially since our technology is becoming more effective at restoring brain activity within the death window.”
Lance glanced at him, and then sat back in the sofa, contemplating. “Anything else?” he asked.
Giles flicked back through the scan, and then honed in on one time slice to view the construction of the neurons.
“Her brain scans show that her neurons are different, too. Might have something to do with her heightened intelligence,” Giles paused, and closed down the scans. He turned and looked at Lance again.
“…but also may be why the AI selected her.”
The General took the cigar from his mouth and rubbed his face, now leaning with his elbows on his knees.
Giles studied him carefully. “What is it?” he asked, being careful not to overstep a mark.
Lance shook his head gently. “Well, if she does have Etheric abilities, which is what your old friend Arlene is suggesting, what does this mean?”
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 102
