His eyes adjusted and he could just make out her face. He kissed her and he felt whole and complete. The dream and his current reality came together at last. And he held on to that feeling as the world around them crumbled to pieces in ion cannon blasts.
The noise and destruction around him had taken on a dreamlike quality. He didn’t care about that anymore. And for a few brief moments, the second iteration of Jolo Vargas, the half-human, half-something humanoid felt at peace.
Unfortunately, the warm calm that enveloped him while holding the girl lasted only a few moments.
“Why are you not in the Fed database? And why can you jump like me?” said Jolo. She continued to smile at him. She kissed him. “You were on my ship,” he said.
“Your ship?” she said. “I think that was Captain Vargas’s ship. But you are not Jolo Vargas,” she said. “Vargas is dead. The only thing that remains of him are the tiny bits of memory rattling around in your little computer assisted brain.”
“What about the time we had together? Me and you on the ship. We loved each other,” Jolo said.
“Those two may have loved each other,” she said. “But we are not them. We are shadows of them, but yet wholly something else. I have been created by my father, The Grana Emperor.” She smiled at him. It was the same smile he remembered, the one on the gunboat.
“No,” he said. “We were together.” He wanted to touch her. He pulled her closer.
She laughed. “Your mind is weak. Your humanness will be the end of you.” Then she pushed away from him and said, “Lights!” One by one large banks of lights on the ceiling popped on.
And Jolo could not believe what he saw: rows and rows of thin, blond-haired girls. Their eyes were closed like they were sleeping but were motionless, not breathing, yet somehow alive. Jolo stared at the closest one. Brown eyes and sharp, beautiful features. It was Jaylen. And another, perfect Jaylen, next to that one. They were stacked in rows above each other. Hundreds and hundreds of them.
Jolo fell to his knees. “But you are not one of them, right? You are Jaylen. My Jaylen,” he said. His world crumbling around him like the burning Grana buildings outside.
“We are all the same,” she said.
Jolo bowed his head. “There is nothing left.”
“No, my love,” she said. “You can join us. The Emperor will be pleased. Come, come to him,” she said, pulling on his hand. It was too much.
He pulled back. “You’re not with the BG. Jaylen is Fed.”
“Jaylen is dead,” she said smiling. “But I am here. We are here. And we love you, Jolo.”
Again, she pulled him gently by the hand. He remembered her soft, warm touch and looked into her perfect brown eyes.
“This can’t be,” he said, the floor shaking as another boat crashed down. “I can’t join the BG.”
“Are you sure, my love?” said Jaylen, both hands touching his cheeks, her lips sad and pouty.
Jolo shook his head, no.
Jaylen took a deep breath. “Well, I can help with that,” said Jaylen. She held up a small stick with a black handle. She pressed a button and out jumped a glowing red energy blade. “My father will be pleased that you came back to us. Dead or alive.” She waved the end of the blade near his ear and he could feel the heat but didn’t care.
“Let me take you from this place,” said Jaylen. “She raised the blade above Jolo.”
“Stand, you fool, and fight!” came a voice from the end of the room. “It must not end here!”
Jolo looked up, and there across the room was a tall green creature holding a BG staff, lit up on both ends. And something turned on inside of Jolo. He thought of Katy, his father and his crew.
Jaylen swung the hot blade down aiming for Jolo’s neck, and he ducked, pushed her back and stood up, pointed his gun at her.
“You wouldn’t do that to me, baby,” she said, grinning at him. “I was just playing. I wouldn’t hurt you.”
The gun dropped a little. “Take her out!” screamed the tall humanoid.
Jolo took his eyes off Jaylen for a split-second, looked up at the green creature making his way across the room. And suddenly the red blade arced down again into his field of vision. He jumped back, but the end of the blade tore into his clothes, gashing his chest.
He darted to his left, out of range of the blade, and had the gun on her. But he didn’t take the shot. He looked at her face and couldn’t pull the trigger. It was Jaylen.
By then the green creature was closer, but still standing a safe distance away from Jaylen. He held the staff awkwardly. Jaylen jumped into the air, and a heavy rod shot out from the bottom of the blade handle and she brought it down on Jolo’s right arm. The Colt fell out of his hand and bounced across the floor. She stepped forward, the blade end of the rod in Jolo’s face. He thought to jump, but there was nowhere to go. Jumping into a wall of Jaylen’s seemed worse than his current situation.
The green frog-like creature took a tentative step forward, and Jaylen, her back to him, said without even turning around, “Don’t try anything, my dear Creator, or your death wish will come true. He is mine. I will take him for my father.”
And she slowly stepped toward Jolo, that little smile still on her face. Jolo jumped for the
