Jenna’s warm brown eyes were open and staring at her. “Where are we?”
“Almost home.”
“Is Mom here?”
Carmen hoped her bot’s voice sounded calmer than she felt. “No, Jen, she’s not. Don’t worry about her. Try to relax. In a few minutes you’ll be at a hospital. They’re going to make you better.”
“When will she come back?”
“Soon.”
Her eyes closed again. “You never were a good liar. Worse than Mom.”
Carmen had been purposefully not thinking about what she could do to bring their mom back home. Sylvia Vincent remained with the Melded after they had restored her body. But part of her mind was still inside the Cordice simulation. Her mom had stolen the harvester and had made a deal with the Melded and a Cordice faction within the sim, and now Carmen didn’t know what part of her mother was real.
She would find out once she reached the Framework. But first she had to bring her sister back without getting shot down, hitting an airplane, or slamming into the ground at warp speeds.
Easy.
Deimos Station Chapter Two
Green, gray, and camo military vehicles lined the street leading up to Garden Village General Hospital. Trucks and Humvees mostly, but among them were armored cars and at least one boxy-looking tank. Flashing strobes blinked everywhere, bright in the hazy morning. Wisps of fog clung to the rows of eucalyptus growing along the nearby boulevard.
A helicopter hovered around a mile off, its undercarriage bristling with what appeared to be missiles.
Carmen felt her apprehension grow as the sphere slowed gradually to a soft downward creep. If she did nothing, they’d touch down on the loop near the hospital’s ER. She plotted a retreat just in case: an upward trajectory that would take them into the air and away from Garden Village, sacrificing comfort for speed.
At least one thing was certain. They had received her message. She zoomed in on the hospital. No one was visible near the buildings. They had cleared the parking lot of civilian vehicles. But then a group of five people wearing the yellow hazard suits emerged from the ER’s entrance. They looked like spacemen in their own right, covered head to toe in shiny plastic.
Barrett was sitting up. “What’s happening?”
“We’re here. And it looks like your people are waiting for us.”
He was a Homeland Security agent. Before her abduction, he and a bunch of soldiers and scientists had occupied the broken-down restaurant where they found the sphere. Carmen tried to remember which other agency had been part of that team. Judging by the hardware, they were military. Air Force? Marines? Men in Black?
At least they hadn’t started shooting.
He unsteadily tried to stand. “Show me. Let me see what’s happening.”
She made the sphere clear as glass. The ground rose from below. The hospital in all its boxy beige stucco glory stood at the center of the swarm of military vehicles. The blinking lights strobed in a frantic explosion of brightness that caused Barrett to squint. More than a few of the Humvees had antenna arrays with dishes aimed at them.
The group of five at the ER entrance all carried bulky equipment but no weapons that she could see.
Carmen stopped the sphere inches from the ground. She made the sphere solid again before opening the door. The door material formed a sloping ramp. Again, a shadow within the sphere shifted at the periphery of her vision. She dismissed it. With so many ship controls and menus distracting her, it was impossible to keep track of it all. And now, with the end of their voyage within reach, she felt a nervous hope blossom.
Barrett moved for the exit.
Carmen stopped him with a metal hand. “Jenna first.”
She moved the bot to the doorway and peered down at the approaching hazard suits. Two of the team held small video recorders. One waved a wand device back and forth while another was typing on a tablet strapped to his wrist. A woman led the charge, her face barely visible through the shine of her plastic visor.
She raised a hand in a greeting. “I’m Doctor Greta Leavitt. We received your message. Are you Carmen Vincent? Can you understand me?”
A surge of emotion surprised Carmen. She almost couldn’t speak. “That’s me. Come help my sister. She’s on board. Please hurry, she’s—”
Again the shadow shifted, a blur along a wall of the sphere. But as it moved it took on dimension, a shape, as if an unseen hand had peeled away a sheet of transparent film and was bringing it towards her. A crisp shock rolled through her fingers and feet and up through her spine.
The scientists and soldiers, the sphere, Agent Barrett, and Jenna all vanished in a flash.
Deimos Station Chapter Three
Coming fully awake felt like pancake syrup was chugging through Carmen’s veins. She wiped the eye crusties away. Her saliva had turned to book paste and her throat was dry. When she sat up, the world spun, forcing her to cling to the edge of the flight bed.
Still on board She Who Waits’ shuttle, she confirmed. But the shuttle was no longer in flight, the artificial gravity provided by forward motion replaced with a looping spin that was nausea-inducing now that Carmen had elevated her head.
They had completed their voyage to the Framework. Carmen had known it would be faster than her journey to Earth. She tottered to the sink the Dragoman had created in the rear hold of her ship, washed out her mouth, and drank deeply.
What happened?
She had piloted the sphere to the hospital, was facing the waiting soldiers and scientists, and…blank.
She returned to the bunk and accessed the com node. Waited the infuriating several minutes as the node tried to reconnect her
