This is it, he thought, though he wasn’t quite sure what ‘it’ meant.
The computer screen showed a clear image of Jack’s parents, faces beaming, over the moon that they would all soon be reunited.
“Son,” his father began. “You must prepare for your journey to join us. The people of Jovian have arranged it. And..,” he paused, “…it has been agreed by the research team that you bring Megan with you.”
“What?! Oh yeah? Really? Far out!” Really?” Jack jabbered. “Totally awesome!”
“Yes, Jack, Megan belongs here too. But you mustn’t scare her, so you won’t be able to explain to her what’s going to happen. It is going to be enough of a sacrifice that she leaves behind the people who love her and who brought her up. The McGlews are now elderly so it will probably be the last time they see her. We will make contact with you again tomorrow,” his father stated as they both waved goodbye (with Nancy blowing a kiss) and left the screen. The computer buzzed off. Jack sat there transfixed at the blank screen, then decided to get himself together.
“I’ve got to think of something,” he said aloud. With that thought, and bursting with excitement, he rang Megan. He thought it wonderful to hear her lovely sweet voice again.
“Jack, I…I didn’t expect you to call again. I thought it was over,” Megan began. Jack ignored her words because he didn’t really know how to respond to them.
“Would you like to go out for dinner? I just feel like getting out of the flat,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t pick up on his nervousness.
Megan didn’t reply straight away. “Well, um.. Where?”
“How about we go to that restaurant that’s just around the corner from where you live? Tell your folks I’ll bring you back by nine.” Jack held his breath.
“I don’t know. My parents aren’t home, and they said I had to stay home and study. My sister’s here.” Megan replied.
Shit.
“They’ve gone out to visit some friends,” she continued. “I think they’ll be back around about nine though. I’ll ask my sister if it’s okay. I’ll ring you back.”
Jack placed the phone on the cradle and stared at it, waiting. It rang within a few minutes.
“Hi, it’s me,” Megan said. “She said it was okay as long as I got home before the wrinklies did.”
Yes! Jack said under his breath, punching the air. “Pick you up at say, half-past five?” he said with a lilt in his voice.
Jack replaced the receiver and started pacing around his flat. What do I do now? Pack? No, I won’t need to. How can I tell Megan to pack anyway? Tell her to pack for what - for a journey to the Planet Jovian? He knew he was having crazy thoughts.
Patting Fahrenheit on either side of his face, Jack thought he looked pretty sharp in his white tee-shirt, black leather jacket and new jeans.
“Might as well go out in style… I mean, up,” he said, smirking.
Bang on five-thirty p.m. Jack rang Megan’s doorbell, and was chuffed that she had put makeup on, her hair up, making herself look older. He thought she looked like a model.
Anyone would have thought she’d made a special effort, Jack mused. The chemistry was still there, even though he knew that Megan was his first cousin and genetically engineered from Katy and Theresa, thus having the characteristics of both of them.
He realised he was staring when Megan blushed.
“I’m ready,” she said awkwardly, trying to mask her discomfit. Jack regained himself, took hold of her hand and led her down to his Mazda.
This will be the last time I’ll have to take poor Megan out in this old banger, he said to himself.
The evening went well. Jack ordered seafood chowder as an entrée while Megan had Soup de Jour. They both ordered the ‘Ship to Shore’ as their mains as they both loved seafood. Now Jack knew why their tastes were so similar. Instead of dessert they ordered two hot chocolates. He discreetly kept an eye on the time so it would leave enough time for Megan to spend some time with her parents.
Mr McGlew answered the door and greeted his daughter with a look indicating she was in trouble. Megan became anxious, quickly introducing Jack to her father, who, with some hesitation, took Jack’s hand and shook it. The look on her father’s face confirmed Jack’s investigations over the past few months. He thought it bizarre, but knew he had to keep himself composed in front of the McGlews. Jack felt like a criminal when in fact he was more of a victim, insofar as not being able to ever have a proper relationship with Megan. Megan took Jack into the lounge where her mother sat in her comfy chair, relaxing from their visit with their friends. She placed a kiss on her cheek.
“Ma, I’d like you to meet Jack.” Megan grinned with pride.
“How do you do?” Barbara replied. She knew very well who Jack was. “Did you two have a nice evening?” Jack discerned that she was only making conversation due to the fact that the old man probably wouldn’t.
“Yes, thank you,” he replied.
“Och weel, that’s guid then. We cannae offer ye ony baking though - ah ate it,” Dennis grumped in his broad Scottish accent. Jack didn’t know whether he was having a joke or whether he was being unfriendly. He laughed a little anyway.
Megan shot Jack a nervous glance. “Oh no, that’s okay, we’re both full. We’ll just have a cuppa tea.”
“Och, wull ye noo?” Dennis replied, his tone definitely unfriendly, Jack deemed. Somewhat puzzled, Megan made a nervous little laugh and put the kettle on, asking if they wanted one too.
“So how was your night?” Megan asked with her back turned.
“Oh, it was nice,” Barbara McGlew answered her daughter. “Janet is still having bowel trouble after her third operation.”
“Um, thanks for sharing that with us Ma,” Megan replied, cringing at her mother’s volunteer of information in front of someone that they’d only just met.
Jack’s mind was elsewhere. He felt terrible that he was about to take Megan away from her family, which prompted him having second thoughts about the whole damn thing. He could feel old man McGlew’s eyes boring into him.
After spending an hour making small-talk, mostly to Mrs McGlew as Megan’s father spent most of the time watching TV, Jack observed that Barbara was becoming tired, and so announced his leaving. He decided to leave the big departure for another day, for Megan’s sake.
Driving back to his flat, Jack mulled everything over. He’d asked Megan over for lunch the next day, all the while feeling like he was leading her up the garden path. He knew he was, and it was an extremely long garden path, a path to a new world, thirty-five light years away!
There is no way that I can take Megan away without first telling her about it, he contemplated, guilt sweeping over him because he had initially intended to do just that.
After they had eaten their salmon and pasta salad, Jack gently took his girlfriend’s hand and lead her into the computer room.
“I’d like to show you something, Sweetie.” Megan looked intrigued. “There’s something you need to know about me, about us, and then afterwards, I want you to make a decision that will change your life.” Jack caught his breath and continued, his heart racing like a trapped little bird. “It will be a very hard decision to make, and I will support you whatever you choose, okay?”
Megan sat there staring back at Jack, eyes wide. She felt a little thrill go through her.
Omigod, is he going to ask me to marry him? she excitedly thought without giving any thought to the fact that she was too young for that. She was once told that when girls start dating boys they see every new boyfriend as a possible husband. She knew, however, that it was a silly girl notion, a thought that was soon confirmed when Jack picked up, not a small purple felt box with a ring in it, but the virtual reality helmet.
“What’s this funny looking mask thing?” Megan asked, deflated.
“You have to put this on,” Jack stated as he handed it to her., “in a minute.”
“Okay,” she agreed, deciding to humour him.
<
br /> Jack took an obvious deep breath. Trying to use the right approach, he explained how he’d been contacted by Jovian scientists and why, conveying it the best way he could. Megan listened intently with a look of innocent confusion.
“Let me show you,” he said, gently taking the helmet from her and placing it on her head. Jack logged onto his computer and keyed in the journeys he’d made. The video clips showed up as thumbnails. Jack clicked on each of them until she’d seen them all. He felt it was the only way of showing her the truth. The last clip showed when Jack had found out about her.
Megan removed the helmet and placed it on the computer table, and went out onto the porch. Jack stood at the kitchen window with a splitting heart, staring at his lovely girlfriend while she sat on the porch steps gazing up at the night sky. After a while, he grabbed his coat and joined her, wrapping his coat around her shoulders. He sat down beside her and rested his hand on top of hers. She looked so sad. After all, he told himself, she had just found out that she was his cousin, and her true heritage.
Megan felt embarrassed, confused, and used. She had been part of an experiment, even though it was for the right reasons. She felt like a freak. She loved her parents and knew they desperately loved her, but it was all too much to absorb. Not now. She just wanted to go home.
Jack couldn’t sleep, wondering which way Megan would turn. Around four o’clock in the morning he finally drifted off, when he awoke to the sound of someone knocking on his door.
“I hope you don’t mind me coming over,” Megan said, hesitating, “I just need to talk to you.” Jack was surprised to see her, aware of the reasonably long walk from her place to his.
“Of course not,” Jack replied, running his hand through his hair. He put the kettle on and slipped into the bathroom to have a quick wash.
Sipping their Milos in silence, Megan shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
This is it, he thought, tensing up.
“I’ve been awake since six, thinking about everything,” Megan began, looking at him square in the face. “Jack, I feel that my heart belongs here.”
Jack’s heart sank.
She continued. “Although I’ve found out my true identity, it isn’t what’s real to me. So many people live a lie; they aren’t living as they really want to. Real is how people should feel inside, and how I feel in my heart when I’m around my family, the way I have been brought up - with love and kindness, what I feel my total existence in this world has meant. You are my first cousin, Jack, we can never be together as, you know, we want. Now I know why you were stalling me and I’m grateful to you for that.” Jack admired the way she talked beyond her years. “But even so, there’s a special bond between us. If I go, I’ll never see my parents again. They’re old, it’ll be a massive sacrifice.” Megan paused, observing Jack’s bowed heard. “But if I stay I’ll always wonder if I’d made the biggest mistake. I don’t want to be ignorant of what is out there, waiting to be discovered. So I’ve decided… I’ll come Jack. I’ll come with you,” she exclaimed, smiling radiantly at him, and excited about everything she was getting herself into.
Jack couldn’t believe his ears, her words taking a few seconds to sink in, then flung his arms around her, hugging her tightly. He felt like the best thing ever had just happened to him.
Holding both of her hands, Jack spoke with conviction. “There has got to be a way around it. Around us. It’s stink that we can never be together for real, but as long as we have each other everything else will come second place, and we might find that it won’t be such a biggie.”
Megan grinned back. “I’m cool with that.”
Back in her bedroom Megan sat down to write a letter to her parents and another to her brothers and sisters, and left them on her neatly-made bed. How could she tell them that they will never see her again? By the time they found the letters she would be gone, and most likely in a very foreign world. She kissed all her soft toys goodbye, shoved a few precious things in her backpack, and left. Halfway down her front path she stopped and turned, looking back at the house. It hit her like a rock. She turned back and walked quickly until her house was out of sight and collapsed, her body convulsing with grief.
Chapter 8
Jack sat down at his computer and logged on. The following instructions awaited him: “You must fly to Florida and from there you must board Flight N6138X.”
Jack and Megan flew out of Auckland airport en route to Florida. On the 12th of September, from Florida’s Okeechobee airport, Jack took Megan’s hand and lead them through Gate 10, boarding a small Aero 500.
Megan clutched Jack’s hand tightly and gazed out the window at the great North Atlantic ocean, all the while both of them wondering when it will happen. They headed across the Sargasso sea, northeast of Florida, the plane bound for Nassau.
It was Megan who first spotted something unusual: A massive curtain of shimmering light, a veil of water shaped in the form of a triangle a kilometre across at each point; that same vision Jack had seen through the virtual reality device of his parents’ missing yacht. The luminous green light Jack had also seen before shimmered beneath the surface, following the line of the veil along as far as they could see. Megan began to tremble so Jack wrapped his arms around her, kissing her on the cheek and holding her tight.
“Don’t worry Megs, we’ll be okay. I’ve already been through it before, well, halfway through,” Jack reassured her. “We’ll probably feel a pull like when we took off in the plane.” Even though apprehensive himself, Jack tried not to show it. He remembered what his mother had said about the Jovian space station sucking aeroplanes and ships up into transplanetary travel.
He became aware of the pilot who seemed to be transfixed on something. His hands gripped the pilot wheel, not moving. It appeared to Jack that the plane had been taken over by an invisible pilot, as all of a sudden it did a 360-degree turn and then started carrying out aerobatic turns in the air. The pilot remained transfixed.
Megan began making frightened little noises while Jack attempted to reassure her that everything was going to be okay, although he wasn’t so sure of it himself anymore. He then heard the pilot’s radio buzz, the air traffic controller speaking to another controller.
“6138X looked like he headed to the northwest….he made a right turn heading back.”
“Say altitude,” the second traffic controller said. The pilot didn’t respond.
Jack and Megan watched in astonishment as they saw the massive curtain of shimmering light approach them at lightning speed and engulf the small plane. With a lurch the plane was sucked into a drag. After the initial shock Jack felt a great sense of relief, and by the release of Megan’s tight grip and the expression on her face Jack knew she must have felt it too. The minutes passed into hours and they both fell asleep.
The sun on his face woke Jack up. Both were tucked up in beds in a warm and sunny room. At first he thought the whole thing was a dream, but when he looked across the room and saw Megan in a bed he knew it couldn’t have been. She also wondered if she’d dreamt everything, Jack’s presence and her unfamiliar surroundings confirming that it wasn’t. Both exited their beds and donned bathrobes that were left for them on a chair. At that moment the door opened, and Jack’s parents walked in!
Numb with shock, Jack automatically responded to his mother’s embrace, her face damp with tears. He became conscious of where he was, and began to sob in his mother’s arms. His father also hugged him, all three crying. Filled with euphoria, Jack’s heart pounded so hard that he thought it would explode. It took a few minutes for him to realise that Megan was still standing there quietly, a smile on her lips that was hard to assess, watching him reunite with his folks. His mother approached her.
Nancy held both of her hands and studied her, experiencing a flashback to when she’d adopted Julia from her sister Pippa and who subsequently died of a cot death. Julia had been a twin sister of Theresa who also died of a cot death, and it was from Theresa and Katy’s DNAs that
Megan had been cloned. So Megan, biologically speaking, was her niece. And, of course, Megan naturally looked like the baby she had loved the short time she’d had with her. The genetic resemblance of her beautiful deep green eyes and full-bodied head of golden blonde hair that fell in soft shiny curls around her shoulders; an asset that Julia would have had, had she not been robbed of her years. How she missed her Julia. It seemed to Nancy that she had been given a second chance, and immediately felt a special bond towards her son’s lovely friend and cousin. Nancy cried tears of joy again. Megan also cried. This caused Jack to wonder if it was because Megan had left her family while he reunited with his, or because she now regarded his parents as her family. He hoped it was the latter.
A few hours and a hundred questions later Megan and Jack were taken to separate rooms where they had to stay for a period of time, a decontamination area. They’d each been provided with a wardrobe of clothes, and were left to shower and get ready to be taken to dinner. The whole dining hall had been reserved only for Jack’s family, and there was a beautifully set table in the middle of the room awaiting them.
Ben Dunlop began to explain what was going to happen over the next few days. Apparently everyone knew they were coming.
“Wow, we must be like movie stars up here!” Jack exclaimed, immediately feeling childish.
“Things are going to be a little different for a while, but your privacy will be protected as much as it can. You’ll be talked about, but after a while things will settle down. It was the same when we first arrived here, and as with all the travellers who arrived here after going missing in the Bermuda Triangle,” his father explained.
“Do you mean that everyone who disappears in the Bermuda Triangle is here?” Megan asked in surprise.
“Yes,” Ben answered. “A good percentage of the population of Jovian is made up of people who went missing in the Triangle. Some people on Earth call it the Devil’s Triangle, but it is certainly not the devil’s world here. Quite the opposite in fact. You’ll see for yourselves when we show you around.”
The Jovian Legacy Page 7
