The Otherlings and the Crystal Amulet

by S V Hurn

  It seemed the conversation was over, so Dorathy said, “I’m going to take a bath and call Alex.”

  Athena had to go there by saying, “You’re not going to have phone sex, are you?”

  “Jesus Christ, Athena!”

  With her big green eyes twinkling, she said, “Just saying, Mom . . .”

  The next morning Dorathy was humming no particular song while she got ready for work. She jumped into her car and sped off with squealing tires. The neighbors had grown accustomed to that sound over the years while slapping their husbands for looking and wishing for their younger years. Dorathy was never going to be that little old lady from Pasadena.

  For the first time, it seemed, Dorathy saw the flowers blooming on the trees and the small wildlife scampering about the grassy knolls. She smelled the air and thought how fragrant it was. Over the years she had become inured to her surroundings, and senses finally awakened, she felt alive.

  Entering her building she called out, “Good morning,” to Lisa, with a joy that had always seemed to be absent from her greeting in the past, somehow making them less than sincere. This morning was different. Lisa looked over her glasses at Dorathy and responded, “Hi. You’re back,” while thinking how different she appeared. That thought progressed immediately to considering whether Dorathy could have possibly met a man and, if so, Lisa needed to find out who it could be.

  Dorathy walked down the hall to her office, and, as she always had, greeted everyone as she passed. Lucy was lingering outside of Jack’s office when she saw Dorathy approaching. Whatever she glimpsed in Dorathy’s expression resulted in her attention to conversation with Jack fading rapidly. Lucy bounced towards Dorathy and said with her big bright smile, “Yay! You’re back! How was your trip, the hotel was awesome wasn’t it, did you eat at that Mexican restaurant I told you about . . . ?” And, with an abrupt ceasefire from questions, she followed Dorathy into her office and sat down on the opposite side of the desk. She scrutinized Dorathy for a few seconds to confirm her suspicions. Lucy gazed at Dorathy, eyes squinted, slowly got up, shut the office door and leaned back against it. “OH MY GOD! You got laid!”

  Waving her hands Dorathy shushed her, giving her the stare down. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Lucy, still standing against the door, reached over and lowered the blinds to the window adjacent to the office door. She turned and crossed her arms. “Tell me everything,” and then she gasped, as her hands went to her mouth to cover up the words coming out, “Oh . . . you slept with Alex Mason, didn’t you?”

  Dorathy was shocked. Did her best friend suddenly possess the ability to read minds? Lucy gasped again, “Oh you did!” Now Lucy was jumping up and down clapping her hands. “Tell me, tell me! He is such a hot looking cupcake; I want all the details!”

  Lucy, now fired up, was shooting questions at Dorathy at an astounding rate. Dorathy couldn’t take the bombardment and sat down, legs sprawled and said, “Lucy! Look, it all sort of just happened, I tried to fight the attraction—we tried really, but it is what it is . . . we love each other!”

  Lucy was beaming with delight for her friend and said quickly, “I want to be in the wedding; oh, please . . . you should get married on the beach!” Lucy was off to the races again and had Dorathy’s whole wedding and life planned out in mere seconds. Lucy loved weddings, loved new relationships and loved being married, at least for a little while, which explained the fact she was on husband number four and by the sounds of it these days, was still counting.

  Dorathy calmed her down. “Yes, you will meet him. He’s coming here in two weeks, but for Christ sake don’t say a word, because I don’t have to tell you how things get spread around this joint and him being here is work related, get my drift?”

  Lucy got it. “Okay, so you guys are going to just act ‘normal,”’ she said sarcastically and laughed, “Well, good luck with that!”

  Dorathy knew she was right and felt slightly panicked—how could she possibly hide her relationship with Alex? Then she became irritated. “You know, I shouldn’t have to hide anything! I have worked here for how many years, donated countless dollars to research grants over the years and have always given the utmost respect to my colleagues. Why should I hide anything? It’s not like it’s anything new around here, the whole damn place can be downright incestuous at times.”

  Lucy understood how Dorathy fell. “So, what do you think you should do?”

  “I know what I feel like doing, and that is walk right into Jack’s or Hugo’s office and just tell them . . . point blank.” She paused. “Yup, that’s what I should do, just say, ‘Hey Hugo I slept with one of our accounts.’” Dorathy dropped her head onto her desk in agony; she felt as if she was in purgatory.

  Lucy laughed and said, “NICE! Yup, that is what you should do . . . NOT! “Have you lost your mind and your virginity?” Lucy thought any more than two weeks without sex meant you had reverted to virgin status.

  Dorathy was being tormented by her past—remembering her younger years being chased by the paparazzi, with horrible photos of her splashed on the covers of magazines. She suddenly had a hard time breathing as the past crept up to remind her of her torturous childhood. Her need for privacy had dominated her adult life. She knew at times she was being unreasonable and tried to convince herself that no one really cared who she was or what she did. But she just couldn’t shake that part of her life. It was, in fact, who she was, that was never going to change. She was a Rosen and along with that came the fanfare she tried to ignore, with little success. “Shit, just let me think about it awhile.”

  Hugging her friend close, Lucy told her how happy she was for her. “Dorathy, if anyone deserves a little happiness in their life, you do.” With a reassuring pat on Dorathy’s cheek, Lucy stepped out of the office, gave a small wave, a wink and said, “Let’s do lunch, SOON.”

  Dorathy now felt like she really needed to put her guard up. She had a meeting with Jack in ten minutes. Right on schedule, she knocked on Jack’s door and asked, “Are you ready to discuss the project with Alex . . . Mason . . . Dr. Mason.” She thought, God I suck at this.

  “Yeah, sure, have a seat.” Jack was a quiet man and despite his white, spiked hair, no one could ever judge his age by his appearance. He leaned back in his chair and asked, “Did you have a good trip?”

  Dorathy kept her replies short and concise, to not trigger any suspicions. “Yeah, it was fine. Got a lot accomplished. I have all the design specs for the canisters and I feel I can fully incorporate the existing design into a space-worthy vehicle with a small, long-life propulsion pack.”

  Jack interrupted her train of thought. “Speaking of propulsion, sounds like our friends at CERN have discovered something very intriguing with their studies from the particle accelerator.” He gestured down at the file lying open on his desk. Dorathy was all ears and Jack went on, “Seems they have possibly cracked the mystery that has been confounding us for decades. Well you remember a while back they had discovered some interesting deviations from the Standard Model predictions in flavor physics. They had several measurements that all show a deviation in the same direction; none of these measurements were highly significant on their own but it was a curious trend. LHCb collected a dataset that had led to far more precise measurements. In a short time, me thinks this indeed would have led to finally, without a doubt, breaking the Standard Model, but something even more spectacular happened!”

  Dorathy gasped, wide eyed, “Oh, Jack, please tell me, because that would be amazing news. My God, that could change everything we know about physics and to finally, after centuries, have the answers we’ve been looking for! Perhaps to find a way of using this information to travel through space! Tell me, so how did they finally do it?!”

  “Well it seems that the power station that feeds CERN was struck by a couple of well-timed lightning strikes during an LHC experiment, which induced an ultra-high frequency time rate of change in the power systems and produced multiple time d
erivatives in the rotating beam packets. Apparently, this stimulated the quantum vacuum, carving a perfect spherical void in the LHC beam tunnel.”

  Dorathy’s mouth hung open as she contemplated the significance of such a discovery. “Jack, do you know what this could mean? What the implications are? We might be able to recreate such an event and use it for higher dimensional travel!”

  “They’ve requested that we send our best to check out their findings and, well, you are the best. I know you have a lot of work to do on Mason’s project, but I think this takes precedence. At least check it out and see if there is any validity to it. Just might be a whole new way of thinking about how we get around the stars. Pretty spectacular, if you ask me. Imagine manipulating that type of science This could be the start of a bold new world for us out there.”

  Dorathy’s mind was racing and was overwhelmed contemplating the reality of such a discovery, but of course she wanted to be a part of this. “When do you want me to go?” The thought of going to check out this technology was irresistible. Jack was right, this could change life as we knew it. The entire time she was thinking about the exhilaration of working with colleagues at CERN, she was hoping that Alex would want to go along for the ride. She loved Geneva and would love to share this with him.

  Jack looked up from the file open in front of him. “They’re still trying to organize a time when the international science community can all come together in a huge disclosure arena. Everyone is going nuts trying to align themselves for technology rights. So really, I think they need to get that all sorted out first, and they will.”

  “You’re right. Something this big, they won’t waste too much time getting their ducks in a row if they plan on presenting this to the rest of the world. It is fascinating though. Last time we were there they thought they had it figured out and maybe they finally did it this time. Imagine the possibilities if we could bend space-time at will and bring the destination to us, rather than trying to travel through it. It is truly amazing.”

  Jack had always been hopeful about the new ways this technology could be used and had been closely following advances in the field. I’ll keep you posted on how things progress over there. When the Higgs was discovered, what, fifty or so years ago, it gave us a clue on how it might lead us to something more and slowly, over the years, other discoveries were made that told us there was, absolutely, more to it . . . shit, sort of like when electricity was discovered—now look at us. This truly is the beginning of a new world.”

  Dorathy left Jack’s office, trying to wrap her head around what they had discussed. She was looking forward to this trip for many reasons, but the only one she could really focus on was, going with Alex.

  She spent the remainder of the week pulling together her design for Alex’s project, all the while contemplating the reality of what she was working on. Eventually, as Voyager had a century ago, the capsules containing a cryogenically frozen person would leave our solar system for intergalactic space. She laughed out loud at the thought of eventually being picked up by an alien spacecraft and revived. Shit, wouldn’t that be a trip? She mocked herself, thinking about what she might say and giggled, saying under her breath, Where the hell am I? And who the hell are you? She thought how laughable it was; not the technology, or the space flight, she got that completely. It was the what-ifs.

  Dorathy plugged away day after day, stealing moments here and there in order to talk to her beloved Alex. She adored the sound of his voice, that accent, the ruggedness, the confidence. She needed desperately to be with him, to hold him. She kept a tight rein on her emotions.

  As the end of the second week approached, she was so excited about seeing Alex she could hardly contain herself. She had kept busy and purposely away from anyone who might figure out she had met someone. She was under the radar, so she thought.

  Dorathy was preparing to leave for the weekend. She planned to pick Alex up at the airport and then head directly home. Just about the time she was going to call it a day, Hugo walked into her office. “Hey Dora, can I have a word with you before you head out?”

  “Sure.”

  Hugo was almost afraid to say anything, so he chose his words carefully--after all, he thought of Dorathy as a friend. “You’ve been working here what, ten years now, and I have never seen you this damned happy. So, whatever it is, or whoever it is, responsible for this newfound happiness, it’s okay. You won’t get any argument from anybody around here, even if it’s related to work. Many of us are guilty of having work relationships and, as you know, people who work here are committed to their projects and don’t have much of a life outside these walls. Far be it from me, or anyone else, to judge you. We just wanted you to know that we’ve noticed your excitement has coincided with the arrival of Dr. Mason, and it’s okay . . . really. I, for one, say it’s about time you met someone. He’s a lucky guy and a good match. Anyway, have a great weekend and we’ll see you both Monday; gotta get those human popsicles up into space.”

  Stunned, all she could possibly say was, “Thank you, Hugo. I appreciate your honesty and understanding.”

  Hugo added, “Hell, I met my wife here, been married twenty-two years. So, I’m just sayin’ it’s all good and I know you will conduct yourselves in a professional manner.” Then he said, with a boisterous laugh, “Besides the cat’s outta the bag and everyone knew what was goin on anyway . . . so I thought I’d let you off the hook.”

  Dorathy’s shoulders slumped. “Really? Am I that transparent?”

  Hugo smiled his big, Texan grin, “Shit, girl, even the folks over in mission control knew!”

  Dorathy shook her head and rolled her eye. “It never ceases to amaze me how shit gets spread around here so goddamned fast.”

  “Yup, we’re one big happy, dysfunctional family. And ya know what? Don’t think I’d change a thing.”

  Dorathy smiled and agreed with what he was saying—this workplace was populated by a great group of people who cared as deeply as she and Hugo did about their work and the people they worked with. She did feel blessed.

  Hugo said, “Now, go get that that man of yours and enjoy life together, because you only get one shot!”

  Dorathy gave Hugo a quick hug. “Thanks, boss, see you Monday.” With a wave she was out the door and heading for the airport.

  Dorathy practically ran to the parking lot to get to her car. She looked at her watch and smiled, murmuring to herself, “Finally I have an excuse to see what this black bucket of bolts is capable of doing!” She jumped in and sped out of the lot with the engine roaring. The volume was on high, some old heavy metal tunes cranked up to get her adrenaline kicked into high gear. When she rolled into the northbound fast lane she was approaching 125 miles per hour She thought, I just might make it there on time.

  As usual, the Burbank airport was busy, but she had made it there with time to spare so she decided to park the car in the lot and wait by the gate. After a few agonizing minutes her phone beeped with an incoming message from Alex telling her they had landed, and he was on his way. Dorathy was pacing in front of the jet-way entry like a panther ready to pounce. Palms clammy and heart pounding; a few minutes seemed like an eternity. Just when she was about to jump out of her skin with anticipation, she saw Alex approaching.

  Looking even more handsome than he had in Phoenix, he was dressed in slacks and a white linen shirt that showed off his tan and his bright hazel eyes. She leapt into his open arms and they kissed as if they had been separated for years. He looked into her eyes and said, “God, I missed you something awful.” Alex kissed her again and held her close. He never wanted to leave her side again but knew he must. For now, he was going to wrap himself in her love like a warm, soft blanket after a long winter out in the cold.

  “How about we blow this popsicle stand?” Alex suggested. Dorathy burst out into laughter, shaking her head.

  When they reached Dorathy’s car, Alex seemed shocked at first, but then said, “I would expect no less from you, and this car
definitely suits you.”

  Dorathy paused for a second as Alex threw his bag into the trunk then asked, “Do you want to drive?”

  “I thought you would never ask.” Dorathy tossed him the keys then directed him home. He handled the car like a professional Formula 1 driver. She was impressed.

  As promised, Athena was home waiting to meet the man who had stolen her mother’s heart and who would eventually become her stepfather. She was waiting patiently in the kitchen and had prepared a few appetizers and iced a bottle of champagne to celebrate his arrival. Over the past two weeks Athena had seen a remarkable metamorphosis in her mother. Dorathy had become a beautiful butterfly, shedding the chrysalis of the past and for this Athena was grateful. Alex had made her mother come alive and had given her the much-deserved happiness that was long overdue.

  She heard their approach as the garage door opened, followed by the familiar growl of her mother’s car. A moment later they entered through the kitchen.

  Athena quickly checked her appearance with the help a small mirrored mosaic art piece her mother had brought back from one of her business trips to Peru.

  She wanted to make a good first impression

  They tumbled through the doorway with the large case, still arm in arm. Alex stopped still, looking from one woman to the other. Athena stood tall and was the spitting image of her mother, with large green eyes and slightly lighter hair.

  He said, “Hello Athena,” as he offered his hand.

  Athena took his hand and pulled him in for a hug. “Welcome to the family,” she said, punctuated by a peck on his cheek.

  After a couple of hours of getting to know each other, Athena excused herself. “I’m going over to Kevin’s for the weekend. If you’d like to get together some night for dinner, or whatever, give me a call and he and I can join you.” She threw some things into a bag and was out the door, wearing a huge smile.

  Alex got up from the sofa and stood, looking out through the large French doors leading to the back yard and pool. He turned to Dorathy. “Athena is a great girl. Intelligent and beautiful, just like her mother.”