Chapter 12
Jane
At least now she was sitting up on the edge of her bed, satisfied that she would not be disintegrated if she so much as sniffed, let alone moved her hand to brush the hair out of her face.
She tried not to look at the worried human scientist too much. Every single time she glanced over at him, he flinched in his chair. He was obviously under the impression that she was about to race through the security field and gobble him right up. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she was a vegetarian, though.
She sat there and tried to think, and while there was a great deal to think about, she couldn’t make her brain play nice. The thoughts kept dashing all over the place, and though she wanted to concentrate hard on this situation, they always coalesced to the same point: Lucas Stone.
It hadn’t escaped Jane’s attention that she’d spent most of her life fantasizing about adventures and that she was and most definitely having one right now. But there was a niggling thought that danced at the edge of her mind too: every single one of her adventures had always had romance.
While she was almost certain she was having an adventure now, she wasn’t sure there was romance, though. Well, not yet anyway. With that thought Jane found herself blinking furiously. What was she thinking, really? Lucas Stone? He wasn’t her type. She’d read all the various fan supplements from Mandy’s subscription to his Fan Club, and Jane knew that they described a man that she could never, ever like, let alone love.
That niggling little voice deep inside her tried to point out that the fan supplements hadn’t been quite as accurate as she’d once believed. Next, she would probably find out that Lucas didn’t own a Catamaran space dog and didn’t do extreme asteroid hopping every other weekend.
Honestly, Jane should not be thinking about this now. She should be concentrating on the dark, horrible creature back on Earth. The one that clearly wanted her dead. She should also be consumed by the prospect she could be disintegrated at any moment. In other words, the situation was a horrible and terrible one, and now wasn’t the time to try to remember Lucas Stone’s favorite dessert, or when he’d taken his first spaceship ride, or his mark in sixth-grade mathematics.
It was an odd fact, and it wasn’t one that Jane had entertained before, but she’d sure read through a heap of those fan supplements. Mandy had always left them scattered over their desk, and Jane had often picked them up because there was nothing else around to read. She was exactly the kind of personality that would pick up a data pad, or holo supplement, and analyze the entire thing, regardless of whether she was enjoying it or not. She had to be thorough. And she’d been thorough, alright; she’d probably read every single one of the fan supplements ever produced by the Lucas Stone Fan Club.
Again she admonished herself that she was getting distracted.
Then again, there wasn’t a great deal she could do while she was stuck behind a security field. If only she had access to that strange black cube, the artifact that had been in Research Lab Two. That… that had been incredible. The way it had moved, the power it had displayed. If only she had that cube with her now, then she could get out….
Jane sighed heavily, and then she looked up to see that the door had opened. She had to blink back her surprise as an incredibly tall Darwai walked through, having to bend itself in half to get through the doorway. Priya and Lucas followed behind, and Lucas immediately made eye contact with Jane, and he smiled and nodded reassuringly.
Jane smiled back. She couldn’t help it, it was automatic.
Then her eyes darted back to Priya and the Darwai. Were they here for round two of “let’s disintegrate Jane day?”
The Darwai walked right up to the edge of the security field, and using its considerable height, darted its head to and fro, apparently assessing each and every corner of the room, and each and every corner of Jane.
“I must admit, Stone, that this Jane specimen does not look all that dangerous. She looks, as you humans might call it, mild.”
Jane clamped her lips together and tried not to make any sudden movements. She looked mild? It had also called her specimen Jane. What on Earth did that mean?
“Her name is just Jane, Director,” Lucas said patiently from behind him. “But I agree, she isn’t a threat to us.”
She wasn’t a threat to them? Well, though she understood Lucas’ sentiment, she couldn’t quite agree with him. While she wanted to believe she wasn’t a threat to anyone, she couldn’t ignore what had happened back on Earth. Something had taken control of her body… the… she didn’t want to think about it, because she didn’t want to have to put up with the searing pain that always accompanied the mention of its name. But back on Earth, that thing had managed to make Jane an incredible threat. Nonetheless, she tried to sit there meekly and look on at them in a thoroughly non-aggressive way.
“I must admit, Stone, that I’m still confused by the situation. Yet perhaps I can help to shed some light on it. Before I became the Director of this institute, I worked extensively on xenobiology. In fact, it was my pioneering work in that area that enabled me to take this command in the first place. If specimen… if Jane here is willing, I can do a full analysis of her DNA and genetic structure to assess what race she’s from.”
Lucas suddenly clamped his teeth together, and Jane could see that he breathed a hiss through them. He looked at her immediately, his expression tensed and obviously waiting for something.
She didn’t react. Jane knew what Lucas was waiting for, though. Whenever Lucas had… whenever he’d… questioned…. Jane just couldn’t think about it. Every time she tried to, she started to get a headache again, and the buzzing would return. So instead she put a hand up to her brow and tried to distract herself with something inane, something safe.
Lucas looked concerned, and took several quick steps to the Director, even tapping him on the shoulder and suggesting they fall back to discuss something.
A part of Jane knew exactly what they were going to discuss, but the rest Jane knew enough about what was going on with her not to press that fact. So she left it as an elusive impression in her mind and tried to concentrate on something a lot easier. Something distracting, something almost pleasant.
She’d once spent a boring afternoon in the office with nothing to do. She’d set about trying to find something to read, and of course the only thing had been Mandy’s incredible collection of Lucas Stone fan supplements. Jane had tried her hand at one of the quizzes she’d found. Somehow, she’d managed to get every single answer right apart from one. Nowhere in the entirety of all the fan supplements she’d read had she come across that one fact, though. What was Lucas Stone’s favorite thing to do in all the universe? It was such an important question, and she was surprised that she hadn’t come across it before. The quiz was loaded right into the holoprojector, and it marked your answers, but it didn’t give you the correct answers if you were wrong. It probably reasoned that if you didn’t know enough about Lucas Stone, then you jolly well had to research and read all the fan supplements like a good little fan should.
So what was Lucas Stone’s favorite thing to do in all the universe? Now Jane had actually met the man, surely that gave her an edge on this. Could she try to derive the answer from all the experiences they’d shared together?
Well, he seemed to look awkward a lot. But Jane doubted that was his favorite thing to do in all the universe. What else did he do? He often tried to pat his hair down even though his helmet was still on. That seemed more like a mistake and not like an incredible thrill, though. What else?
She also knew, from his reputation, that he had a certain way with the women of the Galaxy. Perhaps that was his favorite thing to do?
Jane found herself blushing and tried not to suck her lips in and give a chuckle of a laugh.
Here she was, behind the security field, while a Darwai discussed what to do with her, while some kind of creature was still out there trying it’s hardest to hunt her down, and she was
imagining Lucas Stone in compromising situations indeed.
If Jane were a bit less like herself, and quite a bit more like Mandy, she would come out and ask Lucas straight.
Though Jane could appreciate that, now wasn’t the time to ask that question.
So she just sat there and tried to come up with even crazier answers to it.
Despite the fact she knew all of her answers were stupid and highly improbable, she had to admit one little thing to herself: she didn’t have a headache anymore. She felt fine in fact. The more she didn’t think about her current situation, and especially the more she didn’t think about that thing in her mind, the better and better she felt. The more she felt like herself again. Right now, as the world was going crazy around her, that was a nice feeling to indulge in.
A Plain Jane Book One Page 12
