She lay flat and looked up at the stars; nature’s ultimate security light. Hundreds of miles from home, in a place she had never before visited, the surroundings felt familiar, they felt safe. Far above her head, spread across millions of light years of space, she could see a koala. She could hear her father’s voice inside her head, telling her the story he had told her a hundred times before. The story they recited on his death bed. Lucinda Skye was back where she belonged.
Chapter 2
Jackson Fox had never conformed to the traditional stereotype of a physicist. He was always as comfortable in a pair of running shoes or swimming trunks as a lab coat. Once a keen sportsman, he had taken part in many state championships in both athletics and swimming. He was even in the running for the Olympic team at Tokyo in ‘64. Of course, that was before the accident; before he lost the use of his legs.
His health deteriorated rapidly over the following years. Disability deprived him of many of his passions and like a lot of people he filled the void with vice. A strong constitution protected him from succumbing to the common sufferings of long term alcohol consumption. It was the cigarettes that were his downfall. With the body of a crippled old man, there was little to arm him against the onslaught of disease. He suffered from chronic emphysema and required the use of an oxygen tank at all times.
Standing at the other end of his desk was Dr Rayne. She had taken his work to a level he could only ever dream about. He could not ask for a better protégé. What made her success even sweeter was that she was of his flesh and blood. Just like her grandfather, Emmy’s talent for physics was rivalled by few.
‘How is the testing going?’ he asked.
‘Very well,’ she replied. ‘I think it is time we extended the cord a bit. At the moment, it is like we are building sandcastles when we have the potential to make pyramids.’
‘Do you think Dr Nguyen is up to the task?’
She understood his concern. Charlie was brilliant, but he approached science like a child with his first chemistry set. Even though he was several years older than Emmy, he lacked her composure and restraint. He was too eager, too impatient to handle the responsibility needed. This was a fact she hoped to use to her advantage.
‘I was actually thinking that I should be the one to take the trials.’
‘Absolutely not.’
To emphasise his resolve, he turned and rode his motorised chair to the far corner of his study, where he feigned interest in a reference book picked from a shelf at random.
‘You have made it clear that you have doubts about Charlie. Unless you want to delay any further progress indefinitely, you have to let me do this.’
She waited for his response. The old man’s face gave little away, as between the breathing tubes and liver spots his expression was rendered completely unreadable. By turning his back to her, he revealed much more about his feelings than he ever could face to face. He did not wish to look her in the eye as to do so would be to stare at defeat. Despite all of the respect and love that he commanded from her, he was ultimately powerless. Just a helpless old cripple in a wheelchair. His hand hovered over the chair’s controls, but in the end he could not bring himself to turn and argue.
‘The sun sets at eight at o’clock. I will initiate the experiment at ten.’ She made her way to the door, but stopped briefly before leaving. ‘It would mean a lot to me for you to be there.’
The old man did not answer. He waited for her footsteps to disappear down the hall before returning to his desk. Although he loathed admitting it, concern was not what was keeping him from granting his blessing. The equipment was tried and tested and he had gone over her equations a thousand times; they were flawless. What really bothered him was that he would not be able to go with her. Put simply; he was jealous.
***
Lucy woke with the dawn. It was another beautiful day. She rolled up her swag before going into the roadhouse for breakfast. The exterior of the building had been boiled dry by the sun, forming blisters, which cracked at the slightest touch. Inside was a different story. The heat and humidity was replaced by cool and refreshing air as the air-con was kept running twenty four seven to offer a safe refuge from the relentless heat of the desert outside.
Two men, who had beaten even the sun to rise, sat at the counter waiting for their fried bacon and snags to arrive. They looked over at the newcomer as she entered, but showed little interest. These were real men, strong men and they liked their women strong too. A skinny little city girl had little to offer them. Lucy took a seat at the opposite end of the counter and waited to be served.
‘What can I get you?’ asked a waitress, who had been in the kitchen out back and entered when she heard Lucy come in.
‘Just a glass of orange juice and some toast,’ replied Lucy.
‘Would you like peanut butter or vegemite with the toast?’
‘Just plain butter, please.’
‘It will be ready in a moment.’
The waitress placed her pen behind her ear and then disappeared into a back room before returning just seconds later with fry-ups for the two men. The food looked greasy and unhealthy, making Lucy glad she had settled for simple toast. Whilst the two men tucked into their breakfast with relish, she unfolded a pocket map onto the counter. She was only a further hour’s drive from the small opal mining town of Coober Pedy.
Her father told her about this place when she was a child, but never got round to taking her. It was rumoured to be one of the hottest, most inhospitable places in Australia, if not the world. In an effort to become masters of this savage land the locals had come up with a unique solution. They lived underground.
‘Here you go,’ said the waitress, placing a plate beside Lucy’s map.
‘Thank you,’ Lucy replied.
She watched the waitress walk past the two men and into the kitchen. The woman must have been well into her forties and carried a fair helping of middle aged spread, yet she wore the make-up more befitting of a girl barely out of high school. The two guys were suitably impressed, as they paid the waitress much more attention than they did Lucy.
After folding away the map, she pulled the plate in front of her. The toast was well done almost to the point of burning. Having once worked as a waitress, she knew the bread was probably stale to begin with and the longer it toasted, the harder it would be to tell this. She opened up the small carton of butter that was perched on the edge of the plate and spread it across her toast. Once she finished eating, she placed a $5 bill on the counter and walked out. The men did not look up from their food to offer her a second glance.
‘Am I pretty?’ She asked, putting on her seatbelt and starting up the car.
She at least knew she was not ugly. She was healthy and took good care of herself. Her hair was long and blonde, and her figure trim and petite. Yet she seemed to elicit zero interest from the opposite sex. It just did not make any sense to her. Unsurprisingly, her passenger was unable to shed further light on the matter.
‘I guess you’re probably not the best person to ask, are you, dad?’
She looked at the vestibule containing her father’s remains. High above, a wedge tailed eagle flew, casting a shadow over the windscreen and across the urn. A trick of the light briefly bent the rim of the urn’s lid producing the illusion of a smile. In her current mood, she was happy to accept whatever sign she could.
‘Thank you,’ she said, before putting the car into gear and driving back onto the seemingly endless desert highway.
***
The professor did not leave his study for the remainder of the day. Emmy was disappointed, but she was confident he would come around eventually. The one thing Pops loved more than anything was science, perhaps even more than he loved her. She did not tell him about the dry run she had arranged for the afternoon. If it did not go perfectly to plan, it would give him the ammunition he needed to stop her taking any further risks.
Charlie received the news that Emmy would be taking over th
e testing well. He knew that if he bided his time, his turn would come around again and he was also glad to finally have somebody to share his experiences with. There was no denying that since the first time she had hooked him up to the device it had changed him. Scientists are generally a cautious bunch, but what he now displayed was close to actual faith. Not the hollow, blind faith demanded by religion, but a concrete and unwavering belief that he had actually experienced something pertaining to a higher plane of existence.
‘Have you got any tips for me?’
‘Relax,’ he told her. ‘The most important thing to remember is that you will have little, if any, control over the experience. In time, as your mind becomes more disciplined, you will be able to exercise some control, but for now it is better to simply view yourself as the passenger and not the pilot.’
She slipped off her shoes and grasped the top of her lab coat, pausing as she was about to remove it.
‘Do you mind?’
Charlie quickly cottoned on to her meaning and turned his back whilst she undressed. As she disrobed, he caught a glimpse of her in the reflective screen of a computer monitor. Despite living in the hot climate of the outback, she spent most of her time working indoors and her skin was pale. It still possessed a healthy glow to it, thanks to a clean lifestyle and a well-balanced diet. Her hair was long, brown and usually tied in a bun, but not on this day. She had green, piercing eyes, which matched her intellect perfectly. She also had an impressive figure and it was obvious she looked after it. Behind her clinical nature there was a very beautiful woman. Such a waste, Charlie could not help thinking to himself.
‘It’s okay for you to look now,’ she said.
He turned back around and saw that she was now lying on the slab ready to enter the Mental Acceleration Chamber, which the scientists affectionately christened “the matchbox”. The machine had ten levels of output. Thus far, they had not advanced beyond level 1.
Emmy attached the monitors to her body and crossed her arms over her chest.
‘You’ll need to place your arms by your sides,’ said Charlie.
She did as she was told and he secured her into place with two straps. These measures were introduced at her grandfather’s insistence, but she thought she would be able to exercise enough control to render them redundant. After all, it was her machine.
‘Is this really necessary?’
You’ll see,’ he replied and then pushed the slab into place inside the machine, which by appearance was virtually indistinguishable from that of the CT scanners used in hospitals.
Once inside, a shiver passed through her body, giving her goose pimples. She felt cold and vulnerable. The loneliness, however, was nothing compared to what lay ahead of her.
‘Close your eyes and relax,’ said Charlie, whose voice she could now hear through a small speaker built into the interior of the matchbox. ‘This process will only be successful if you allow it to. I’m going to start you off slow and keep the cord to just two metres.’
She shut her eyes and tried to blank out any negative thoughts or fears. She counted backwards from ten and with each number she focused on a different body part, starting with her toes and finishing with her head. As she did so, her body began to feel heavy and she could no longer move her limbs. Then she felt herself drift upwards. The sensation was slow at first, but seemed to speed up and then she felt like she was falling.
Her eyes opened and she felt the pull of her bindings as her body tried to sit bolt upright. It took her a while to realise where she was and what was happening, or rather, what was supposed to be happening. Instead, what she had experienced was the same sensation felt by millions of sleepers each night; the falling dream.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Charlie.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘I just lost my focus, that’s all.’
‘It can be difficult, but you must be patient. When you first feel yourself start to rise, you will be tempted to help the process along, but you can’t. You have to give up any illusion of control; do you understand?’
‘Perfectly; I’m ready to give it another try when you are.’
She relaxed her body again and shut her eyes. This time, instead of counting down she recited the phrase “I am floating” over and over. Once again, her limbs became heavy and she felt herself rise up. When the pull came, she simply concentrated on her mantra and rather than being jerked back into full consciousness, she found herself hovering above her body.
The room and all of its contents became hazy and transparent. She could not focus on any one thing and even her thoughts seemed distant and vague. Charlie had written detailed accounts of his experiences, but she was having trouble recalling little, if anything of what she had read. The trouble was that her body was still in the machine and what she was now experiencing was merely secondary consciousness. She was a disembodied essence, relying on instinct and intuition to make sense of anything.
The longer she stayed under, the more information was revealed to her. Everything is composed of energy compressed into matter and in her altered state she could see that energy for the first time. Charlie was standing at a raised computer console about ten metres from her. She was unable to make out any of his features or even trace his silhouette, but she could feel his presence nonetheless. She willed herself to move closer to him. Without effort or physicality of any kind she felt her position begin to shift. When she was just a couple of feet from her colleague, she stopped involuntarily. She willed herself to move, but nothing happened. This is when she saw the cord.
Since man first began to walk upright and developed a consciousness, he has tried to find the answer to what connects the mind to the body. It is the question that attempts to unravel the very mystery of life. In the beginning the question was purely abstract, but then the philosophers passed the baton to the scientists and now here she was, staring right at nature’s greatest miracle. It is known to some as the silver cord. One end is attached to the body and the other to the soul.
Of course, she understood where to draw a line between science and superstition. Despite the romantic notions represented by her work, she knew that the cord was actually a signal tying together particles and energy in a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement. Effectively, this meant that no matter how far her consciousness and body became separated, they retained a spontaneous level of communication that was unaffected by distance. The cord was her lifeline.
She started to feel vulnerable. What if the connection were to break? Was it even possible for the connection to break? The questions were causing her stress and the stress was increasing her focus. The more aware she became, the less clarity she could feel around her and she could sense herself being pulled back into her body. She tried to resist, but her efforts were entirely futile. The draw of the living flesh was too strong. The mind and the body are meant to live as one and the temporary separation was extremely fragile.
She opened her eyes.
***
Lucy sat in a booth in the underground hotel. She did not think it any different to being in a cellar or a basement bar. The walls were perfectly geometrical and neatly finished with well placed and effective artificial lighting. If anything, she would have preferred it to have been a bit more “tunnel-y”.
The mix in the bar leaned ever so slightly in favour of tourists over locals. She recognised an elderly couple from her tour group earlier in the day and the others all had various tells. Shopping bags were the biggest giveaway, particularly the brown paper variety as given out in the museum gift shop.
Most of the patrons remained standing after buying their drinks as they had only come for the novelty value and did not plan on making a night of it. Lucy, on the other hand, had already booked a room and could not think of anything else to do in the town. There were a couple of restaurants, including a pizza place, but they were all above ground, which was why she had chosen the bar. She was beginning to regret her decision until she saw a pair of cute guys enter. Sh
e hoped they would notice her too, but their attention was quickly taken elsewhere.
A pretty red-headed girl was sitting at the bar, reading, and the newcomers made no effort to disguise the fact they had spotted her and liked what they saw. One of them offered to buy the girl a drink, but she indicated that she already had a full glass and did not take up his offer. After buying a couple of bottles of beer, they made their way to a pool table.
Lucy glanced back to the bar and her eyes met with the redhead. She felt a little embarrassed, as if the stranger may feel she was being intrusive, but the girl smiled back and raised her glass. Lucy raised hers in return and mouthed the word cheers, but the girl had already gone back to whatever it was she was reading.
She decided to take a chance and walked across to the boys playing pool. They were both local. It was their clothes and hairstyles that gave them away. A mishmash of too many cultural influences picked up from attempts to emulate the different styles and fads of the foreign clientele that so often frequented the bar. Since they displayed an obvious, albeit flawed, awareness of the world outside of Coober Pedy, she hoped that the allure of a sophisticated city girl would be too much for them to resist. She placed a $2 coin on the rim of the table before returning to her booth.
It did not take long for the guys to start looking over in what they believed was a discreet manner. This meant they were unsure of her attractiveness. If she had looked like the girl at the bar they would have made no attempt to hide behind their pool cues, but as it was, they were being cautious not to show any interest in case she was not worth a root. She hated herself for getting them so wrong.
She sipped her drink and glanced back at the pretty bar bunny. Perhaps she could pick up some tips. The girl again noticed that she was being watched, but offered a more subdued smile this time. Lucy realised how peculiar it must appear that she kept looking over at this girl. She wondered if she should go over and explain, but then thought better of it. The best thing would be to finish her drink and retire to her room in order to kill the rest of the evening with a good paperback.
Diamond Sky Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 2
