When he arrived back on Jovian soil his first port of call was the Thebes Federation of Research. The building was unoccupied as Jack had anticipated, and let himself in. The laboratory was pretty much the same as he’d left it, but this time he was there for a different reason. His fingers flew over the keys as he hunted for the right information. Precious minutes ticked by and Jack knew time was of the essence. An hour and a half passed, with Jack desperately hunting for the information he needed.
He then heard an alarm sound off. He knew he only had minutes to spare before he was again seized by the Jovian authorities, and probably for good this time. In a last-ditch attempt he tried an alternate data link, and the stuff he was looking for flashed onto the screen. Jack’s nimble fingers sent the information onto his allies who were waiting for it. He then left the building by a side entrance and hastily made his way to the organised rendezvous.
Carlos and Ewen, and all the people he’d got in contact with were waiting and ready. Jack delegated their individual tasks and everyone dispersed.
The gathering of Jovian hierarchy and dignitaries was being held at the Palace of Amon. Jack knew the girls would be there with them. He couldn’t enter the palace as he’d be instantly detained, so his team of helpers fell into the fold of palace guides and security subordinates, maintaining a network of contact. Jack monitored their individual routes via an image-transmitter, which allowed him to relay information back to them. One of his crew was near to the entrance from where the girls emerged escorted by Marquises Ahmose, Yakobaam, Smendes, Darius, and Premier Tiberius. Jack could clearly see they were frightened. Anger welled up again, but knew he had to keep it together. The girls had linked arms for support. Jack ached to take them away from all of this. The girls were then approached by another group of people. In the middle of this group was a strikingly beautiful woman, and Jack assumed she held a very important role observing the entourage of men in uniforms who accompanied her.
She must be the Queen of Jovian. Even he was mesmerised by her beauty. He knew each country had their own king, but the world of Jovian was controlled by a queen. He knew of her existence but had never seen her. He then remembered what her name was: Queen Meryt-Neith.
He looked across at his girls again and they too were transfixed by her. It was almost like she had cast a spell over them. The queen radiated an aura, but her eyes were cold. Jack started to feel extremely uneasy when she stood before the girls with her hands splayed out and then raised them slowly up above her shoulders. The next thing he saw was alarming, and then remembered what he’d been forced to witness in front of the giant computer screen. The woman, with her eyes closed, was morphing into the Sphinx. Fear swept through to the core as Jack watched his girls raise their heads towards the queen. The eyes of the woman-cum-Sphinx opened, and dazzling rays of light shot forth and into the eyes of the girls.
“Oh my God!” Jack cried out in agony. He knew it was too late. He felt his heart collapse as he witnessed the lifeblood being sucked from Megan’s beautiful clones. Jack fell to his knees, the pain slicing through him like a knife. He gasped in horror as he watched each of them crumple to the palace floor. The woman had become an enormous Sphinx, just as he’d been shown. Its eyes opened, and a blinding, piercing colourful ray of light shone over the surrounding land. Forming within the rainbow of colour were the words,“Sinestu-ipini-itxaro-ahalguzti”, and a thunderous cheering enveloped the countryside.
Just as he’d seen.
He knelt in stunned silence. Everything had failed. Jack’s fast work at the Research Centre barely an hour ago had been to find the code to network his team’s devices to his transmitter. On his instructions his crew were to forcibly take each girl by the hand, and, via their electronic devices that were linked to his transmitter Jack would have pushed the Lucre Boxes together at the precise moment, which would have granted the girls and his helpers instant travel to Earth, and away from all of this.
But his plan had failed. He had failed.
Jack completely lost it, yelling out at the top of his lungs. His heart was pounding and sweat poured down his face. He knew what loss really felt like now.
“This can’t be happening, this just can’t be happening!” Kneeling and heavy with grief, Jack lifted his head and saw the girls lying like discarded pieces of property. He crawled towards them amidst the deafening jubilation as the people of Jovian celebrated the glory of their new creation and ruler.
No-one cared about his girls now. They’d served their purpose. He, Megan, Sobek, Ben and Nancy had loved and reared Megan’s twenty-four clones, ultimately and solely to become used and left empty, for the continuation of life on Jovian.
Jack was an emotional mess as he reached Chione, her eyes empty. Her spirit had left her. Jack gazed across at the others, who also lay lifeless on the hard ground. Jack sobbed so hard that his heart physically hurt, and even painful for him to breath. He didn’t know what to do next. He knew he couldn’t leave them here; he still had to get them home. He held Chione in his arms while he pushed his Lucre Boxes together, and in an instant they were back in Jack’s house in New Zealand.
There was no sign of Megan or his parents, so Jack had to manage on his own. He gently placed Chione on a bed and covered her up with a blanket. He then used his boxes to fetch the others. One by one he brought the girls back to where they ought to be: home. Jack had to make sure they were warm as he knew they had to acclimatise to the much cooler temperature given the season. As he pulled up a blanket over Neema, Megan, Ben, and Nancy came into the room. They all looked questioningly at Jack. Megan paused, then rushed over to Neema.
“Jack?..” Megan began, searching his face for answers.
Jack took hold of a distressed Megan and sat her down with his parents, giving them a detailed account of everything that had just happened.
“I promised not to come back empty-handed, but I’d intended to bring back our girls like they used to be and not like this,” he apologised, looking utterly shattered.
Megan broke down and wailed into his arms while he cried again on the inside, sadness swallowing them up like the great hands of death.
Chapter 29
Jack severed all contact with Jovian and tried to re-establish a normal life with his family. It was a very difficult time for everyone as they not only had to tend to the needs of their incapacitated girls (who required fulltime care) but they also had to keep the girls’ existence to themselves. Jack knew he wouldn’t be able to explain to the nation how twenty-four identical young women even existed, let alone becoming debilitated all at the same time. There would be an instantaneous public awareness, and most likely a national inquiry. The family would be made into a freak show. That was the last thing Jack wanted. It was up to him and his father to keep their family safely away from any media hype.
It was an expensive mission to turn his house into a mini hospital equipped with life-saving apparatus to feed the girls intravenously, and it was heartbreaking for the family to see them subsisting like this. It was bittersweet that they were able to afford it thanks to Jack’s Egyptian remuneration funds that he’d earned from the GE project. But it wasn’t how it was meant to be.
Over the following weeks Jack and Megan became increasingly alienated from one another, as Megan spent every waking moment tending to the needs of her clones, and sometimes sleeping alongside them.
Jack grabbed himself a can of Maverick and went outside. He sat on a benchseat beside the puriri tree, looking up at the starry night. He thought about Jovian. It was hard to believe that only a short time ago they’d been living up there in that fantastically different world, a world that had given them so much joy and life fulfilment, then had been taken away in an instant. His father strolled over, joining him on the benchseat. They sat there together, both gazing up at the night sky in silent unification.
When they came back inside, Megan and Nancy had gone to bed. Not yet ready for sleep himself, Jack switched on the TV and flicked randomly
through the channels, mulling over the events of the last few months. As he settled down on the couch he noticed a colourful light shining through the doors of the cabinet where he’d put away the Lucre Boxes. He opened the doors and the boxes showed the symbols again with rays of colour oscillating around them. He immediately thought the Jovian hierarchy was trying to reach him and force him back to Jovian. He slammed the doors shut and backed away from the cabinet. Alarmingly he felt a strong pull towards the cabinet again and tried to fight it, but the more he fought against it the more intense the draw became, overwhelming him. His hands involuntarily reached out and held onto the boxes, jamming them together. Jack felt the gravitational pull and knew exactly where he was heading. He could do nothing but brace himself to face the hierarchy of Jovian, fearful about what they had in store for him.
As he solidified he found himself in a dark place. Out of the darkness came a familiar face: Sobek. Jack gave her a quick hug and asked her if she was alright, but wondered why she had been sent and not Timos or the authorities. He was certainly relieved, however, that it was her.
“Take me to your home,” she said with a sense of urgency. Jack smiled when he heard her eloquent Egyptian accent again.
“Okay, let’s go,” he answered without question, realising she was the one who had pulled him in. He knew that Megan would be stoked when she saw her.
Once back in the house Jack asked Sobek to wait in the lounge by the fire, the embers of which were still glowing. He gently woke Megan out of her deep slumber, telling her there was someone here to see her, someone very special. A sleepy Megan threw her bathrobe on and came out to see who it was, feeling annoyed that Jack had woken her and thought it was kind of rude that someone would turn up to see her in the middle of the night. As she ambled into the lounge her disgruntled thoughts soon dispersed when she saw who it was.
“Sobek!” she screamed in delight, wrapping her arms around her special friend. They hugged each other tightly. “I thought I’d never see you again. You don’t know how much I’ve missed you!”
“Me too. Megan, I know about the girls,” Sobek stated, straight to the point.
Megan’s expression changed. “I’ll take you to see them,” she replied, and turned to go into the girls’ rooms.
Sobek caught her by the hand. “I can help them,” she declared. Megan and Jack looked at each other, puzzled. Jack felt his heart skip a beat.
“You can help them?” Megan questioned.
“I can help them,” Sobek repeated, smiling at both of them. Jack noticed something different about Sobek’s demeanour. She carried a lovely sereneness, but with a look of finality in her eyes.
They showed Sobek the girls’ individual ‘hospital’ rooms. Without wasting time Sobek went into Shani’s room and kissed her gently on the cheek. With her left hand she placed her fingers over each of Shani’s eyelids and looked skyward, her other hand raised. Two rays of luminous green light emitted from Sobek’s eyes, shot through the window and into the night sky. Sobek started chanting in beautiful Egyptian. She chanted in a form of song which continued for about three minutes. When she had finished with Shani, she went straight into Sabah’s room and repeated the process, then Jaqi’s room, Layla’s, Hasina’s and Hathor’s rooms, Cecile’s, Neema’s and Claudine’s rooms, and so on until she’d rejuvenated the energy and lifeblood of all of the girls. Megan’s beautiful young clones started to show recognition and life.
Jack noticed that Sobek was becoming weak and went over to her side just as she collapsed. He caught her and laid her down gently.
She looked at Jack and spoke softly. “Our girls are now safe, the Sphinx has expired; her energy has been transmitted back to the girls. The Sphinx is not a threat to you or your people anymore. Jovian will now perish.” Sobek smiled up at Jack and Megan as she faded away, her body becoming still.
“Oh my God! Sobek!” Megan cried as she bent over her truly amazing, selfless friend.
Jack comforted her. “She did it for our girls,” he said, his heart heavy.
As the girls slowly became healthy and whole, Megan, Jack, Ben, and Nancy spent the rest of the night and into the morning welcoming them back, loving them, but at the same time mourning the loss of Sobek.
They bade their farewell to Sobek in a private funeral and laid her to rest beneath the puriri tree. The very next day Jack lit a fire at the back of the house and the family had a ceremonious burning of the Lucre Boxes.
“Thank you, Nick, for the birthday present that would bring me great discovery. And, my good mate, it sure as hell did!” Jack saluted.
After a month of family time and monitoring their health, Jack, Megan, Ben and Nancy knew it was time to introduce the girls to their own world.
And what an overnight, international sensation they were.
They were the legacy of Jovian.
Accreditations:
www.bermuda-triangle.org/html/bruce_gernon
Egyptology.com
http://www.msg-history.com/
The Jovian Legacy Page 24
