Chapter 17
Jane
What was wrong with Earth? What had happened? Was it that thing?
Though Jane had no real evidence, she knew that yes, it was the thing. She’d heard Lucas refer to it as Specimen 14, and while she appreciated it had another name, she couldn’t dare use the word.
Just thinking about it managed to send a horrible chill racing through Jane, and she pressed her lips closed in an instant, even flickering her eyes shut until the cold past.
Exactly what it had done, she didn’t know, but she did know one thing for sure: whatever it was doing, it was all in aid of tracking Jane down. Earth wasn’t the target of Specimen 14, Jane was.
Yet she was still walking, with Lucas Stone by her side, and that meant something.
He was turning out to be completely different from his legend. In fact, the only thing she’d been right about was what he looked like: tall and thoroughly handsome by human standards, and perhaps even by several other alien standards as well. But tall and handsome didn’t mean that much when the Galaxy was full of aliens, and everybody looked different; there were so many bodies and shapes and ideals of beauty. In fact, these days people could be attractive no matter what they looked like, and concepts of beauty tended to parallel far more with confidence and authority than long legs and a charming smile. That being said, Lucas still had something, and while Jane had once convinced herself that she would never, ever be drawn in by that certain something, she could still appreciate that it was there. More importantly, she could still appreciate that he was there, that he was walking confidently beside her, not leaving her, not deviating from their path, his head always held solidly forward, his eyes always gazing fixedly and determinedly toward whatever lay ahead.
… What lay ahead… Jane clamped down hard on her jaw, her teeth setting together, even grating. They were walking through what looked like an expensive and posh section of town. Though Jane couldn’t exactly be sure, as every building was astounding in her eyes. Even so, the aliens she now saw walking around all wore expensive tunics and had looks on their faces that suggested they deemed themselves to be more than your average lazy Galactic bum.
The closer they neared their destination, the more Jane started to pant and the more her breath came in shallow little bursts. It wasn’t because she was tired – even though she could hardly keep up with Lucas as he raced along – it was because she was scared. Actually, it was more than that, it was as if her body was preparing for something as if every single one of her cells was now poised in anticipation.
The more poised and expectant she became, the more she found herself walking closer and closer to Lucas until she even bumped into him several times. He didn’t put a hand on her shoulder and push her away, but he did at least glance down at her and acknowledge it with a bare smile. “It is going to be fine,” he tried once more.
She doubted that. It was going to be something, but it wasn’t going to be fine. Coming home from work and sitting on her window ledge while she ate a lovely, warm Hoyan hotpot, was fine. Sitting at work as a stream of beautiful sunshine warmed her back was fine. Meeting a shadowy contact on a planet far away from Earth in the hope that he would be able to tell her what was going on, wasn’t fine; it was adventurous. Jane had spent her entire life distinguishing well and competently between fine and adventure. She didn’t waste her breath pointing this out to Lucas, though, because she hardly had the breath to force her body to keep on following him.
She really wasn’t built for this; she could hardly walk at a brisk pace, let alone run around the Galaxy as they frantically sought answers to their conundrum. Yet, despite that fact, Jane continued on.
Eventually, they managed to reach a tall tower. It wasn’t connected to the main city: they’d had to use a slingshot transport to get to it, because it was a good 500 meters away from the rest of the interconnected buildings that made up the main metropolis.
At first, Jane had been incredibly wary as she’d approached the peculiar transport, but when Lucas had offered her a hand, accompanied by a rather inviting smile, she’d ignored the hand and walked up into the transport next to him, being sure to shoot him an intense look. He’d shrugged, laughed, and had told her in a quiet voice to hold onto something strong.
Before Jane had processed that, the platform suddenly shot up and out from the street. She let out a yelp, latching her hands onto the railing before her, even though the platform was shielded from whatever inertia that should be accompanying its movement. Then it shot toward the other building. The effect of it was like being slung from a canon. In fact, Jane had once seen a documentary about a peculiar ancient human activity of loading oneself into a cannon and being shot at various targets. Apparently, humans had done so for entertainment, but Jane didn’t find this entertaining one little bit. In barely several seconds the platform docked with the building 500 meters away. Rather than slowing down like a ship would, it slammed into a security field. At that moment, Lucas latched a hand over her arm, no doubt ensuring she didn’t fall over from the shock of it all.
“Steady there,” he said as he let her go, the security field around the platform blinking off and allowing them to leave.
As she stumbled to her feet, her legs shaking as she followed Lucas off the platform, she could hear that he was laughing quietly. “What was that thing?” she demanded. “And why are you laughing?”
“It’s a slingshot transport, Jane,” he answered, “and I’m laughing because that was impossibly cute.” He kept on chuckling as he started to walk away from the platform, not bothering to turn to her.
Which just left Jane completely confused and a great deal flustered. Cute? Impossibly cute? What exactly was that meant to mean?
Before she could storm up to him and ask, she noticed that Lucas came to a sudden halt in front of the building before them.
It didn’t have any doors, or perhaps its entrance was somewhere around the side and simply not visible from her angle. Nonetheless, Jane found herself staring up at it, confusion on her face. “How do we get in?”
Lucas didn’t answer. In fact, he was just standing there, body stiff. After a while, she realized that he was probably talking to somebody over his com-line, and she just left him in peace.
She walked around behind him for a bit, waiting, trying to be the good sidekick as he no doubt received an important call. She headed over to the side of the path that ran all the way around the building and found herself staring down at the ocean below. She hardly ever saw the ocean: it wasn’t close to either the Galactic Force nor where she lived, and Jane wasn’t one for travel.
Yet now that she stared down at the dark blue mass before her, she had to admit that it was beautiful, inviting even.
Strangely inviting.
Lucas was still busy having his conversation, and who knew how long it would take. Maybe the Galactic Force had finally managed to re-establish control over its communication lines, and they’d called their wonder boy to see how he was going. Lucas was probably talking to the Dean herself, or perhaps even the Galactic Union President. Yes, that made sense.
The more Jane stared down at the ocean below, the more she was filled with the frankly peculiar and entirely inappropriate compulsion to jump in and have a swim. It was inappropriate because she was half way through a mission to find out why some mysterious and thoroughly fiendish creature was out to get her. It was peculiar because Jane couldn’t swim. She’d never had the chance to learn, after all; swimming was too close to adventure.
Yet now here she was, body inching closer and closer to the end of the pathway and the ocean below. As her body moved, a sharp, tight pressure began to build in her brain.
It was mad, thoroughly mad, but the desire to just jump into the water was starting to build and build and build within her. The desire was different to the by-now familiar control of the implant. It felt uneven somehow, clunky; it seemed to lack the seamless integration that the implant was capable of.
> The more the desire built within her, the more a stabbing pain began to radiate from her head.
As Jane battled with her almost suicidal compulsion, Lucas was still simply standing there, ramrod straight, obviously still confabbing with whatever heads of state, dignitaries, and Galactic leaders that had called for a chat.
… Jane jumped in.
She actually jumped into the water.
The shield that she knew would have been in place around the pathway to stop people from falling in and drowning just wasn’t there.
So Jane hit the water.
She started to sink.
…
Lucas Stone
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t move a muscle. His armor had just seized up. Every single joint of it had locked into place without a single command from him and, in fact, despite every single attempt to override it.
It wouldn’t listen to him: the living membrane was accepting no commands from his mind.
He practically swore at it to get going, but it wouldn’t respond.
That strange subroutine he’d been vaguely aware of since arriving had started to consume more and more power the second they’d walked off the slingshot transport (well, Jane had wobbled off).
Now that program was using every single scrap of power that he had, and there didn’t seem to be a thing he could do to override it.
If that weren’t bad enough, he’d just heard a splash from behind him.
Although his heart had raced at the sudden and unexpected sound, a sharp and punctuated breath leaving his chest, he hadn’t been able to turn around to see what it was or what had happened. And with his armor completely unresponsive to his commands, he couldn’t use it to obtain readings on the environment.
He couldn’t move, and he had no idea what was going on. He also couldn’t see Jane.
She’d been behind him when he’d stopped, when his armor had ground to a halt.
She hadn’t once walked in front of him.
He had no idea where she was.
As the seconds passed, the sound of that splash still ringing in his ears, his blood turned cold.
He wanted to shout out her name. He couldn’t.
He wanted to turn to see if she was still behind him. He couldn’t.
Instead, whatever program that had seized his armor remained in control, completely paralyzing him.
Then he heard something floundering in the water behind him, heard the frequent and erratic splashes as something thrashed about in the ocean just several meters to his left.
He started to hear the choking.
Something was drowning.
Lucas knew it was Jane.