Painless? Sera thought. So much for that assumption.
The theory behind the POSSUM held that the mind was most vulnerable to submission during REM sleep, or deep dream sleep. Scientists had proven that it was entirely possible to link two unconscious minds. While in a state of carefully controlled induced sleep, two technologically advanced headpieces, called reciprocators, transmitted precisely coordinated, digitally enhanced brain wave sequences between two people. Their sleeping thoughts could be connected. The military hoped that the project would lead to their ability to interrogate their enemies by entering their dreams, to coerce them into revealing their secrets.
Initially begun twelve years ago, the research had shown promise. Benign and specifically rehearsed information was actually passed between the study subjects. It was a six hour experiment and the tandem team was awakened every hour to record their findings. The project was scrapped as being too dangerous and unpredictable. Apparently the scientists created a mutual dream during which one was critically injured. The incident manifested physically while the scientist slept. His chest suddenly burst open and he bled to death before the medical team could save him. An immediate shut down of the project was ordered until further investigation could be conducted.
Some of the dream images were cited by the surviving scientist and the documentation included proof that he was able to obtain previously unknown information from his partner. The Captain involved in the study left the project shortly after and it was never resumed. An explanation of the phenomenon causing his partner’s death was never found.
Argilos and Tomas.
Jerad told her they would often vanish from Protogio and then reappear…
Sera sucked in her breath when she realized what she was doing. She was confusing her dream thoughts with reality. Had she recreated Protogio in her mind based on what she had read about the previous project?
Jerad.
How could he not be real?
"N-o-o-o-o! Jerad!" Sera cried out his name, and squeezed her eyes shut. She sickened at the revelation washing through her. Her stomach clenched with unbelievable agony.
He had to be real.
She loved him.
Her chest constricted.
"Jerad," she whispered.
A wave of dizziness spun through her and the room felt like it was teetering.
She heard the clinking of chains and strong arms came protectively around her body. She was being cradled. Sera turned her face into the warmth of a muscular chest. His familiar scent soothed her. Sera sighed. A hand stroked her cheek, and lips brushed against her mouth.
"You’re sitting in my supper, Starbird."
Sera’s eyes fluttered open. "What?"
She brought a hand up to touch Jerad’s face as he gazed down at her. Something wet was soaking through her clothing. When she turned to look, she saw that indeed, her rump was partly on top of a platter of food.
"Such nice garments you have on Gaia, Sera." Jerad smirked as he fingered the hem of her clothes and then grimaced.
Sera glanced down at herself. She was wearing an ugly hospital gown. Sera chuckled softly. "At least I didn’t land on my head this time."
Sera looked around. The room was damp and dingy. The walls and floor were icy stone. There was a tiny window near the ceiling. An iron grating covered it. The entrance to the cell was also covered with iron bars. Sera returned her attention to Jerad. His wrists were shackled but the chains attached to them were slackened to allow him to eat. The other ends of the chains were spiked to the wall. His ankles were bound in cuffs attached to the floor, immobilizing his legs.
"Where are we?"
"The dungeon, in the castle of the First Kingdom."
"I must be sleeping…dreaming."
"You have returned to me, wife."
Jerad drew her closer and tightened his embrace around her. "I heard your words, woman, before you left me. I beg that they are the truth. Do you love only me?"
Sera pressed against him. His heartbeat thudded in her ear. It sounded…he felt…so real.
"I love you." Sera slipped her arms around Jerad and she clung to him. Her chest drew tight as her mind keeled with the unbearable truth that she was not really with him.
"Tell me you are not promised to Moros, woman." Jerad stiffened at the thought.
"No. I don’t know why he lied. He is my brother."
Sera shifted from his lap and kneeled in front of him. She cupped his face between her hands and looked deeply into his eyes. "Tell me that you exist. Tell me that this is not a preoccupation in my head."
His dark gaze was penetrating…tangible…real. Her eyes welled with moisture. She closed them as Jerad brought his lips to her lids to kiss her tears away. His shackled arms came around her and he drew her close. "Sera, if I were an illusion, how could you believe my words if I told you I was not."
He could feel her fading from his presence, and knew no way to keep her there. Sera felt it too and slid her arms around him, begging him not to let go of her.
"I’m drifting away, Jerad." She looked up helplessly. The aggrieved expression on his face tore through her. "Help me."
Jerad inhaled sharply, clueless as to what he could do to help her, to help them both. He looked down at his platter of food, plucked a kupa from the plate, and placed it in her mouth. Then he bent for one last kiss.
"Remember me, Sera,"
She disintegrated from his arms.
Jerad threw his head back against the wall and growled with agony at the empty space where Sera was just moments before.
"Tell me you saw her, Aryan, and speak the truth. Did you witness her or am I going mad?"
Aryan, who had been silently watching from the cell across the hall, locked eyes with Jerad. His glare was both amazed and stupefied.
"She was there."
… the bonded will be torn apart by flesh …but not of spirit…
Sera was staring at the sterile white ceiling of her hospital room. She never opened her eyes to view it. They were already opened. She was fully awake, fully aware--not sleeping. She could taste Jerad and kupas on her tongue. She sucked in a hard breath and held it, then cried out a moan, drew up her knees and hugged herself. She felt wet on her bottom, and got out of bed to investigate. She twisted her hospital gown around. It was stained the color of the deep orange kupas. Sera dropped her eyes to the untouched breakfast tray of grape juice and cereal--no kupas and no orange jam. She patted the dry sheets on the bed. Nothing had been spilled.
Sera wrenched her mouth with dismay. She was losing her mind. The team in the POSSUM lab had said so. Post-traumatic something-or-other. That’s what she heard one of them say as they dumped her drugged filled body onto a gurney to transport her to the base infirmary. Though she was in a groggy state, Sera was able to put reason to their words. It was the thing that happened to soldiers after a horrible war. And now she had it.
Sera sat on the edge of the bed and combed her fingers through her hair. She released a grievous sob. Her heart was splitting with every beat. Death would be preferable to the torment she felt.
He wasn’t real. None of it was real.
Except for Garret’s sudden appearance at the end, that is. Where had his dream thoughts taken him? Apparently he was experiencing a similar illusion. Sera had the impression that he spent the entire time in the First Kingdom, certainly a part of Protogio. One of them conjured the images and the reciprocator must have transmitted at least some of those affects to the other sleeper. Without her memory intact, Sera did not think to search for Garret, but he was apparently searching for her.
Garret….Sera was so angry with her brother at the moment, though his behavior certainly was not out of character. It made perfect sense that he would attain a position of power even if it was within the realms of a fabricated dream. Garret was a military man, rigid in his manner, and touted as a natural born leader. Sera spent most of her life being dragged by him from base to base, as he embarked on new endeavors
and climbed the military ladder. From his beginnings in the MP--military police, and then as an arms expert, Garret always pursued interests related to combat and with destroying the enemy. His specialty was in warfare maneuvers and terrorist interrogation. The latter earned Garret his present post with the C.O.R.E.
Garret was the reason Sera joined the military and trained at the officer’s academy. He urged her to become a medical research technician and procured her assignment to the POSSUM. She never had a say in the course their lives would take. The one time Sera did protest, Garret became so upset over it that she never breached the subject again.
Garret dictated her life.
She couldn’t even date without his approval, which he never gave. He threatened any man who got too close to her, managing to effectively gain her the reputation as being untouchable among their peers.
The forbidden fruit she was nicknamed. To her humiliation some took bets on who could get her into bed--until Garret found out about it and pummeled a few heads into the ground.
Sera should have hated him for that, but she didn’t.
He loved her and she loved him. He was only trying to protect her. She was his only family. It had always been just the two of them, ever since their parents were killed in a terrorist attack while vacationing in Africa, leaving Sera and Garret orphaned. She was a baby at the time. He was a teenager. There was no other family. They were left with only each other to depend on.
Her only grudge against Garret was the lack of mementos from her parents and the life they shared. No pictures. No keepsakes. Garret told her he was so distraught after their deaths that he destroyed all reminders of them.
Sera scratched her head and then clenched her hands together. She was weary. She felt so empty and alone.
She missed Jerad.
She had to overcome this. He did not exist.
Sera took a deep breath and apprehensively opened her left palm. Her eyes widened. There were three small scars in her flesh, not old, but not new either. She rubbed her thumb along the purple and green bruises surrounding them. It didn’t hurt.
An autonomic reaction to her subconscious machinations.
It seemed like a good explanation. She lifted her hospital gown and ran her fingers along the scar below the left side of her rib cage and shuddered.
If Sondra succeeded in killing her, she might have really died.
Sera lowered her gown.
She swallowed a hard, painful lump and stared at her hand again, tracing the bruises with her fingertips from her palm to her wrist, and twice around to the dorsum of her forearm.
Forever, Jerad. My memory of you will be with me forever.
She wrinkled her brow as she studied the faded marks. They looked so much like…
Don’t do this to yourself, Sera.
She had to know.
Sera pulled open the drawer in the bedside stand. It was empty. She walked to the closet and opened it. Her clothes were hanging inside. She reached inside the pocket of her jacket, but the only item in there was her computer palm pad.
Sera got dressed and walked to the nurse’s station.
"Oh, you’re awake, lieutenant." The nurse behind the desk greeted her and then frowned as she noted Sera’s attire. "And you’re dressed."
"Yes, yes I am. I need a pen."
"A pen?"
Sera huffed. She leaned in to read the woman’s name tag. "Yes, a pen, Lieutenant Thacker. Ya know, the tube thing that has ink in it."
Unperturbed by Sera’s obviously annoyed attitude, the lieutenant smiled. "Well, we don’t use them much anymore, with everything being recorded digitally, but the staff is still fond of post-its. There must be one around here somewhere."
She pulled out a drawer and began rifling through it.
Sera tapped her fingers impatiently on the desk-top.
"Ah hah! Found it." The nurse handed the pen to Sera and watched with confused dismay as Sera began sketching on the skin of her hand and arm. When she was finished, Sera studied the finished product. She had outlined a perfect leafy vine adorned with rosebuds.
"Check this out, Thacker?" Sera held up her palm to the nurse. "Nice body art, don’t you think?" Sera turned and started to walk away. "I think I’ll have it tattooed."
"Lieutenant Moros, where are you going?" the nurse asked her.
"I’m outta here." Sera continued walking toward the door.
"But the doctor hasn’t discharged you."
Sera stopped and looked over her shoulder, not caring that she was being unjustly rude, fueled by her irritation and frazzled emotions.
"Yah? So court martial me. I’m leaving."
Sera hit the button on the wall and the door slid open. She left the base hospital dragging her melancholy spirit like a ball and chain.
Sera’s heart was wilting, enhanced when she remembered that the POSSUM lab was located in the third corridor of C.O.R.E. building. Bewildered, Sera wondered how much more of her life she would discover had been interjected into her dream.
The door to the lab was open. Sera heard voices inside, but stopped abruptly when she realized they were arguing.
It was Garret and Melissa.
"I’m telling you I never touched her, Melissa!"
"Then how do you explain it?"
It was another lover’s spat.
Sera pressed her body against the wall. She really shouldn’t be listening, but their arguments were always so amusing. Garret never could tolerate Melissa’s jealousy, and Melissa had so much trouble tolerating Garret’s infidelity.
Imagine that.
Who was it this time? The nurse in the infirmary or the cute little blond in Sheet Metal Shop? Garret was a free spirit or a louse, depending on whose side you were on.
"I should have never told you that I wasn’t her brother!"
A numbing rush assaulted Sera’s nerves. She listened with disbelief.
Not my brother?
Like she needed to hear this right now.
Before she could dwell on it further, a sharp pain stabbed like a knife, low in her belly
If there was anyone who knew what that felt like, Sera surely did.
Sera’s knees buckled as she grabbed her abdomen. She leaned against the wall for support. The hallway felt like it was tipping.
Music threaded through her eardrums, an enchanting melody that captivated her senses, seized her soul.
She lifted her head to locate the sound.
Shegarth and the Magistrate Council stood around the table of his private chamber, staring at the spectrocorde that was placed in the center. Colorful beams of light danced from the prisms in rhythmic accord with the music it played.
In near unison, their heads turned toward Sera. Shegarth approached and crouched down in front of her. "Daughter of the Mark, from where did you come?"
"I was there, on Gaia. Now I am here," she answered shakily.
"We are at war, Sera. The Nyx warriors believe that you abducted their Monarch and have brought him here. They bargain Jerad’s life for his and they seek the Key to Orion‘s belt, but we will not succumb."
"You will let Jerad die?"
"We will do everything that we are able to free him."
Sera looked beyond him to the worried expressions of the Magistrate members and then to the spectrocorde.
"It has played incessantly since you were taken."
"I’m afraid, Shegarth. What can I do?"
Shegarth’s face suddenly faded and Garret’s grew solid before her.
"Sera, are you okay?" Garret was stooped down in front of her. Melissa was watching from over his shoulder.
"What language was that?" Melissa asked.
Apparently Sera had been speaking out loud. Garret would know what she said. Would he think she was crazy?
Sera stared at her brother--who was not her brother. His eyes were nearly silver. His hair so blonde it was almost white. They looked nothing alike.
"Uh, it’s Greek. I taught it to her."
Forced it on her was more like it. From the time she was very young, Garret insisted she speak only in Greek when they were alone. He even insisted that her schoolwork be written with Greek lettering as well, before he would allow her to translate it into its Latin syllables. Thank goodness for modern technology. With a touch of a button on her palm pad, that task was easily performed.
"Well, why is she speaking it now?"
Sera’s eyes drifted from Garret to Melissa. "Temporary delusional psychosis, post trauma. Haven’t you heard, Melissa?"
Melissa raised a brow and went back inside the lab. She returned moments later holding a small container and handed it to Sera.
"What is it?"
"Sedatives. Take one and get some sleep. You look like hell."
Sera took the container and slipped it into her jacket pocket.
"Come on, Sera. I’ll take you home." Garret helped her stand.
Sera pursed her lips and jerked her arm free. She started to walk away. Garret grabbed her arm and turned her around.
"You are still angry with me."
"You messed with my head while we were linked, Garret, and you’re still doing it," Sera responded bitterly.
Garret eyed her suspiciously, wondering how much of his and Melissa’s argument she had heard. He would have to watch her closely. He followed her down the hall.
The C.O.R.E building was on Jupiter Air Force Base located on the Atlantic coastline of Florida. The installation housed several medical research facilities, including a major research hospital. It was a self-contained site containing a shopping center, theaters, schools, a park and several swimming pools, among other conveniences. Over four thousand military members and their families lived within the confines of the Jupiter facility. Sera and Garret’s quarters was located within it and only a five minute ride away.
The Third Corridor Page 26
