by Mara Amberly
Pandora's Home Dimension;
Terania Settlement, Alverron – 10:15 a.m.
The leaves were green and spongy, holding water from the recently-terraformed soil. All plants were precious because they helped sustain the settlement and they would be needed to rejuvenate the world. It was believed that only plant species within the settlements had survived. All others had died out, but it wasn’t yet certain. With the terraforming taking place, life was being returned to the planet outside and there were small, terraformed sections of Alverron that were alive and green once again.
Pandora carefully cut off one of the leaves with her scalpel. She sliced off a very fine layer of it and placed it on her slide. Doing so released the scent of the plant, which as strange as it seemed, smelled green. It made her wonder if the world smelled that way – greener, before the cataclysm. She added some iodine, covered and positioned the slide, and viewed it through the microscope. She was adjusting it when Helene approached.
“What have you got there?” Helene asked. She was a Scientist co-worker of Pandora’s. While Pandora worked in the lab, she carried the rank of lab technician instead. The badge of Scientist – with a capital S – could only be bestowed by the council, and it carried enormous rights and privileges. Of the Scientists in the lab, Helene was among the friendliest of the women. She was also Pandora’s friend. She had strawberry blonde hair that she wore cropped short and she was quite tall.
“It’s a leaf from an Echeveria. It’s one of the plants from terraformed zone E-3,” Pandora explained. That zone was close to the outside of the dome, but unfortunately not visible from Pandora’s apartment. If it was, she’d have spent more hours staring out at it than she already did. She’d volunteered to analyse the plant samples, in part because of the rumours Kailen had told her about. It made her even more curious than she already was, and sensitive to changes in the lab and around the people she knew, just in case there was something going on.
Helene sat down on the stool beside her, looking over at her work. “So what are you checking for?”
Pandora didn’t mind sharing what she was doing or what she’d learned. “At the moment, I’m looking for toxins or changes to the plant’s structure that might have been caused by growing outside.”
That seemed to puzzle Helene. “Hasn’t that already been checked and re-checked again?” She knew to some extent that she was stating the obvious.
“It has. This is one of the cross-checks. I haven’t found anything off with it so I’d say it looks good.”
Helene smiled. “That’s good. Let me know if you learn anything interesting.”
That caught Pandora by surprise and she laughed. “Gee, thanks.”
Climbing off the stool, Helene smirked. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. We both know it’s tedious, but better you than me.”
Pandora looked over at the plant. “I actually don’t mind it. They’re kind of nice,” she said, indicating the plants.
“You’re chopping them up,” Helene said, a little puzzled.
“Even so. Perhaps they’ll let me take them back out there when I’m done.”
Helene chuckled at that. “Not bloody likely.”
While Pandora knew they wouldn’t, she intended to keep pushing her luck because one day she would find her way out there.
Helene drifted away to tend to her own tasks, leaving Pandora to record her findings on the data pad. She was filling out the categories on a botany form when she heard a heavy trolley being wheeled in. She looked up from her station, and noticed that the trolley held several large, sealed crates. They were red, which indicated only Scientists of rank could view the contents. That wasn’t what stood out most to her as interesting. It was the fact two unknown Scientists – in the dark coats only they wore – were transporting the contents. One was pushing the trolley and the other was accompanying it with a data pad in hand.
There were enough people in Terania Settlement that you could encounter strangers sometimes, but it wasn’t normal to see Scientists who were unfamiliar. There were only ten Scientists of rank in the settlement that she knew about, and they most certainly weren’t strangers. These men must either have worked in a location that separated them from the main lab or they must have come from somewhere else. That’s if they were genuinely Scientists, but it made no sense that they’d wear the coats otherwise.
Pandora glanced at Helene across the room, and was surprised to see her look away, as if she felt guilty about keeping a secret. In that one glance, Pandora knew that Helene knew... something.
What’s going on here?
The trolley was quickly wheeled through the lab and into the refrigerated storage room off the corridor. Pandora waited for the men to walk back, but they didn’t. She reasoned they must have left through the building’s other exit or they might be speaking with one or more of the other Scientists. She knew Helene wasn’t among them, nor was Morris Sarikov, an older Scientist who she noticed working on samples on the other side of the lab. He hadn’t paid much attention to the arrival of the trolley.
She couldn’t help but put two and two together, even though there were a lot of other possibilities. Could these be the possessions found out in the wilderness? It makes sense that they’d bring them here for study. The strange Scientists though – is it possible other settlements are involved or there’s some secret group that we don’t know about? Could these Scientists be working with the military?
Pandora’s scientific background cautioned her against jumping to conclusions, but there was enough going on here that she had reason to question what was going on.
I want to have a look in that room.
She knew that many items marked with red clearance were sensitive or dangerous in some way, but if they were radioactive or biologically dangerous, they wouldn’t have been left in refrigerated storage. The refrigeration might have been incidental, because it was one of the few rooms in the complex with independent security. The crates’ presence there meant they shouldn’t be harmful, though she couldn’t say that with certainty. I want to see if the rumours are true. Kailen is going to be so fascinated by this. If she told him about it, but she knew she wanted to.
Pandora could also try speaking with Helene about it. Scientists weren’t supposed to share findings of a high clearance level, but they did it all the time. She didn’t want to put Helene’s – or her own – job on the line, but she was genuinely curious.
I could wait until the lab’s empty and see if I can have a look in there. I wouldn’t need to use my ID card, so if they realise someone looked, they shouldn’t know it was me.
If she was caught, Pandora thought she could find an excuse. Some of the plant samples she was working with were stored in the same room. She would just need to make sure no one saw her through the glass and the lab truly was empty.
CHAPTER NINE
Nessa's Home Dimension;
Georgia, United States – 11:41 p.m.
Nessa and James sat on the paved ground beside Katy’s house. The hour was late and it was dark, but lights from the house cast patterns on the lawn nearby. James had intentionally sought out the shadows and somehow the darkness made him feel a bit better. He felt like he couldn’t or didn’t want to face this world and all that was new in it just yet.
“What am I going to do?” he asked Nessa worriedly. “I have a son. He has his mother to take care of him but she’s unwell. I don’t want him to grow up without a father.” Under different circumstances, he might not have believed it as readily as he did, but from the house and what he’d heard, James had few doubts as to the reality of his situation.
Nessa wasn’t sure how to deal with what had happened except try to solve it. “I’ll do my best to get you back to them, James. There may be a way to do it; I just need to figure it out. I’ve never known anyone else who could do this so there’s no one to ask advice from.”
She was reluctant to get his hopes up too much, but what could she do? It might be possible and she just di
dn’t know how.
“That sounds like it could take a long time to figure out, if you can at all?” There was disappointment in his voice but great hope too.
Nessa nodded to him. “I’ll do my best. I promise you that; even if it takes a long time.”
She wasn’t sure if in promising it, she’d committed a lifetime to solving the problem and returning James home, but he deserved her help. She needed to learn to better understand her power as well, and formulate better strategies for visiting other worlds. “We’ll try to get this figured out, one step at a time.”
James was grateful, despite the difficult situation he found himself in. “I appreciate that, but what if you can’t? Am I going to bother you forever?”
Nessa winced, but she knew he was waiting for her answer. “If I can’t, then I’ll keep trying. You have my word. As for bothering me, I wouldn’t worry about that right now. I’ve spent plenty of my life bothering my relatives so it’s probably my turn.”
“So what do I do now? I don’t have a home here. I don’t have anything. I’m a guard. Does your world even have guards?” It was a sign of James’s practicality that he was considering his everyday life already. He seemed like he’d been cast adrift and he needed a sense of stability.
“There are guards, like bodyguards and bouncers who work in clubs.” He wasn’t that burly, but he seemed like a man who could handle himself in a fight. “There are police officers, who are like guards, but without a background in this world, you might find it hard to become one. Most people wouldn’t believe that other worlds exist and they check into applicants’ history. There are investigators too – private investigators. I think anyone could become one. It really depends on what your strengths are and what you want to do.”
James listened with interest and some disappointment as Nessa explained. “So there’s nothing I can do here that’s the same as what I was doing before?”
Nessa shook her head. “This country isn’t a kingdom so it’s quite different and it may take some getting used to. I think you would find work somewhere that would suit you.” She tried to sound upbeat but she wasn’t entirely successful.
“What’s a private investigator? Who do they work for?”
“I think they work for themselves. They help clients and investigate cases. Usually they’re crimes or incidents that the police can’t or won’t help with. Sometimes things like cheating spouses–”
James smiled. “Cheating spouses. That’s funny.”
Nessa shrugged.
“Oh, you’re serious,” he said with a note of surprise.
“Yeah,” she admitted. “There are lots of other things you might investigate instead. I don’t know. Missing persons and things like that. You already know a lot of things that other people here don’t. I guess one of the biggest things is you need to learn some of our laws. Most people don’t know all of them because... there are a lot. The most important ones are usually common sense, like don’t kill people.”
James flexed his fingers. “Don’t kill anyone. Got it.” He glanced at her and smiled.
Nessa wasn’t sure if she should be relieved that he said that or not. “You should add ‘don’t hurt people’ to that list. By the way, this house belongs to my aunt, Katy. It has six bedrooms, so I can ask her if it’s alright for you to stay here. She doesn’t know about my ability,” Nessa said, a little nervously. “I never found a good way to tell her because I wasn’t sure...”
“If she’d understand?” he asked.
Nessa nodded. “Yes.”
James gave her a sidelong glance. “There is a reason for that, you know.”
With a sigh, Nessa nodded. She wasn’t denying the fact; she just didn’t want to hear it. “It is what it is. If you had this power, wouldn’t you use it?”
It surprised her – shocked her even – when James laughed. It held a lot of suppressed anger.
“I’d be a damn lot more careful with it than you’ve been. That’s for sure.”
Nessa got up off the grass and started walking toward the front of the house. She would help him, but she didn’t have to hear this.
“Wait, don’t go. Where are you–?”
Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “Where am I going? I’m going to talk with Katy. Please stay here.”
Nessa knew that even if he left, he would be back. She was his only key to seeing his family again. He wouldn’t walk away from that; not for good.
The house was bright, and it felt surprisingly clean and luxurious after Nessa’s dungeon stay. It smelled better too, but as she stepped fully into the light, she realised how dirty her dress had become during her otherworld adventure. The hallway led through to a small but well-equipped kitchen; there was a living room to the left with a big suede sofa. There was no sign of Katy there, but she’d left the TV going. Nessa made her way upstairs as she listened for signs of her aunt. She considered taking a shower or changing her clothes first, but James was waiting outside. She probably should have just let him in, but it seemed best to speak with Katy about it first, since it was her home. As it was, Nessa was a house guest herself.
Her room was just down the hall, but she heard the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. She recognised the sounds of Katy brushing her teeth at the sink.
“Katy?” she asked, straightening her dress and patting down her hair to tidy it.
“Nessa? Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you.”
Even though she spoke of worry, the way Katy said it implied more of an inconvenience than true fear for her safety.
Katy opened the door and Nessa saw she was already in her clover leaf pyjamas.
“Could we talk, Katy? There’s someone downstairs and I’m wondering if it would be possible for him to stay here.” Her voice held a slight tone of desperation.
It surprised Katy in a way few other things could. “Oh, Nessa? Who is he and why would he need to stay here?”
This obviously wasn’t going to be as simple as Nessa hoped it would be.
“It’s hard to explain. He’s a friend and his family are far away. He can’t get back to them right now and he has nowhere else to go, Katy. It’s somewhat my fault.”
Katy’s eyes widened and Nessa could tell she might’ve been drawing the wrong conclusion. It was just too difficult to easily explain.
“Are you telling me he’s a married man and you’re involved–?”
Nessa laughed. “Uhh, what? No!”
Her dramatic response to Katy’s question reassured her aunt somehow.
“No, it’s nothing like that. Okay, he might be married, but I don’t know. It’s my fault he got stranded out here, that’s all.”
Katy put her hands on her hips. ”It’s not like we live in the middle of nowhere, Nessa. Surely there are places he could go.”
Nessa cringed. “There really aren’t. Can’t he just stay overnight here and we can figure things out tomorrow?” She tried to look hopeful, even charming to convince her aunt.
“You didn’t find him in a back alley?” Katy asked.
“No.” She resisted the temptation to tell Katy she’d found him outside a dungeon. “He was a guard but he lost his job... in a way, because of me. He’ll need to find another one. He’s thinking of setting up as a private investigator.” Nessa found his origins surprisingly easy to gloss over. Of course, when Katy saw the uniform, that might change.
“What have you got yourself mixed up in, Nessa? This doesn’t sound right.” Katy looked past her down the stairs, but there was no sign of the man in question.
“This was my fault Katy and I want to try and help make things right. I need time though and he needs somewhere to stay. It’s late and...”
Katy sighed. There was a sense of futility to it, as she sensed she was about to agree to a situation she might come to regret.
“Please?” Nessa asked, begging ever so slightly.
“Please stop. Oh God, now you’ve got me saying please too. Introduce me to t
he man, will you? No promises but I’ll talk to him. Oh, let me get my dressing gown first and you – what happened? You look like you rolled in a mud pit.”
Nessa looked a little bit insulted. “I fell down.”
It took a few minutes for Katy to don her dressing gown and walk downstairs. Nessa had found James more or less where she’d left him, and they were waiting by the open door when Katy joined them there. If Katy was puzzled by James’s guard uniform, she didn’t say so. Nessa did notice James’s expression of surprise when he saw the inside of the house.
“You can come in,” Katy said. “Let’s all sit at the kitchen table. Nessa told me a bit about your situation and that you need somewhere to stay. Would you like to shed some light on that for me?”
Nessa noticed a flicker of annoyance and hurt in James’s eyes. He sat down on one of the padded seats by the slightly-cluttered table.
Nessa and Katy sat down as well. Katy looked in her best ‘interrogating’ form. She’d obviously noticed the information gaps in Nessa’s explanation.
Nessa was tired and it showed. She’d spent her day in a dungeon and walking, and even opening the portals had taken quite a bit out of her. Still, the thing that drained her most of all was James’s sadness. It was the kind of situation that might haunt her forever.
“I come from a place called Derin, which is far from here.” James paid a lot of attention to the table’s surface, but when Katy looked him in the eye, he glanced up at hers. “I travelled a lot today, and I’m tired and worried. I just need some rest and something to eat would be good, and a chance to figure out where to go from here. If I can stay then I promise not to cause any problems.”
James was entirely sincere, and even though Katy didn’t understand his circumstances, his emotions triggered her compassionate side. Katy could also tell that Nessa felt bad, even though she didn’t understand what had gone on.
“Do you two want to share a room?” Katy asked. She mainly brought it up to see how they’d react together.
“No, it’s alright,” Nessa said, giving her a subtle glare.
