The Rescue
Alita raced to Linda’s chambers. One of the servants had come into her office 5 minutes ago to tell her that the search party had found Linda and that the “alien with the missing nose” had instructed her to be taken to her quarters and sent for the doctor.
Alita stepped into the room. Linda lay on the bed the alien and doctor standing over her and a large group of servants surrounding them. Alita tried to get closer to the bed but the crowd held her back. She took a step back and shouted over the conversations that filled the room. “If you’re not helping the doctor I want everyone out of this room.” The group of servants looked at her and then shuffled out of the room. As soon as they were gone she closed the door and raced to the Zotac’s side. “What happened?”
She directed the toward the doctor but the alien answered instead. “Her brain is rupturing.”
“Rupturing? What does that mean?”
The alien stopped and looked Alita straight the eye. “Your Zotac is dying.”
“How did this happen?”
Jatar mumbled some instructions to the doctor then rounded the bed and led Alita to another corner of the room “I held Linda’s brain captive for three years and then the connection was broken abruptly causing her brain a serious jolt. I was unable to treat her immediately and now it seems that while she was out something else has happened to her.”
“Something else?”
“Another jolt of some kind but I’m as of yet unsure what.”
“So what can you do?”
“I’m doing the best I can. I’m not even sure if I can treat her.”
Alita became suddenly irritated. “What do you mean you can’t treat her? You’re the one who did this too her.”
“I know but things have changed. My nose is gone.”
“You have to be able to do something.”
“I’ll do my best but I can’t promise anything.”
Jatar knew he was in a lot of hot water and he knew that if he wanted a chance of any kind of life he had to save Linda. If their Zotac died he could pretty much guarantee that his life would be forfeit.
He came alongside the doctor and looked down at his patient once again. The girl was mentally unstable and he – being a Juptan – was the best choice of doctor that there was on this planet. But that was under better circumstances under these circumstances he didn’t hold out much hope for the girl or for himself for that matter.
He closed his eyes and focused on finding a signal any signal. Nothing. He tried again but no matter how many times he tried there was nothing to be found not a single thought that was not his own.
Alita had left hours ago with a demand that if there was any improvement she was to be called immediately. Jatar lowered himself into a chair. Dr. Utopia had been going through a series of tests and finally being satisfied that the girl was a stable as she was going to get he packed up his things and called it a night. “Call me if there are any changes” he ordered as he walked out the door.
Jatar was slightly surprised that the doctor had left him alone with the girl but he knew as well as he did that if he did anything stupid he would be as dead as the girl.
As soon as the doctor left Jatar stood and went to the girl’s side. He ran through a series of mental tests of his own as he watched her. Things he was sure the good doctor had failed to check being inexperienced with this kind of doctoring. The girl began to mumble something under her breath and he leaned closer trying to hear what she was saying. “Matthew...Matthew.” Jatar straightened as she mumbled the name over and over. “What’s going on in that brain of yours Linda?” He whispered to himself. He paced around to the other side of the bed and looked down at Linda’s face. Her lips moved silently in incoherent mumbling. He reached down and brushed a hair out of her face and brushed his fingers along the scar that was on her face he let his hand rest a moment on her cheek then pushed his hands through her hair and closed his eyes.
A flash of light shook him and he was suddenly aware that he was no longer in the palace. Scenes floated past him and snatches of conversation floated through his mind. It took him only a moment to realize that he had actually crossed into Linda’s brain. And now that he was here he wasn’t leaving until he had fixed the problem even if it killed him.
Alita couldn’t sleep, worry over Leena’s health crowded out all other thoughts. She had decided not to go home that night so that she wouldn’t be that fat away if there was a change. After about 5 hours of tossing a turning she got up a made her way toward Leena’s quarters. She got up and walked through the halls. The palace was kind of creepy at night. Leena had kind of let the place get kind of slummy in the last three years and Alita just hoped that her friend would survive long enough to fix it back up the way she had always enjoyed it. She came to the door and knocked softly. No sound came from the room and it clicked with her that the doctor probably went home for the night and she absently wondered what had become of Jatar. She knocked on the door again just to be sure and then pushed the door open. The room was dark and Jatar was as she expected no where to be seen. She lit a candle by the door and walked farther into the room. She neared Leena’s side and gasped when she Jatar kneeling as Leena’s side. At first she thought that he might be sleeping but she quickly released it was quite the opposite when she saw that his eyes were wide open and he was shaking. “Jatar.” The alien didn’t respond. “Jatar” she nearly shouted still no response. She noticed that his hand was resting on Linda’s face and she raced around. Her first impulse was to pull the hand away from her face but she couldn’t help but wondering if that would make Linda worse. “Jatar” she shouted at the top of her lungs hoping that she could snap him out of it. Still nothing happened Jatar was shaking more than before and Leena was beginning to shake as well. It was all Alita could take she dropped to the floor and began to cry.
The sound of a girl crying floated into his consciousness but he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. “Jatar” his name fell on his ears. “Please! Please snap out of it.” Jatar was suddenly aware that his hand still rested on Linda’s head. He pulled his hand away and shook his head clear as he refocused on where he was he felt light headed and lowered himself to the ground. Alita looked up as he lowered himself to the ground beside her. She quickly over to him and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh thank Kohath!” and then realizing the awkwardness of the situation she pulled back. “Did you fix the problem?” She asked looking up into his eyes.
“I think so.” He said as he tried to clear his head. He felt weak and he suddenly realized that it had been nearly 24 hours since the last time he had slept. “We’ll know better in the morning.” He stood and made his way to the couch.
“Please Jatar tell me what you learned.”
He was tired but sleep would have to wait there was no way Alita would let him sleep until the entire experience was out in the open. “I entered Linda’s brain.”
“Yes I gathered that much. What else?”
“I basically lived her life.” Horror struck Alita at this announcement and Jatar smiled weakly and reached a shaking hand out to grab Alita’s.
“Don’t worry if I was going to tell anyone about your Zotac I would have done it 3 years ago when I first learned her memories.”
Alita relaxed then as she realized that this man had had access to Linda’s darkest secrets and hadn’t shared them. “What else happened? Were you able to reverse what happened?”
“Not completely! I was able to reverse what I did. But remember I told you there had been a second jolt?”
“Yes!”
Jatar suddenly realizing how hard this might be to explain to Alita. “Apparently this second jolt was a lot stronger then what I did to her.”
“What?” Alita was clearly confused and Jatar suddenly realized how hard this might be to explain to Alita.
“OK! So the connection with her was broken correct?”
“Right.”
“Then she went into the forest where she ran into a mental currant of some sort that nearly killed her. In fact it should have killed her.”
“What happened?”
“Her brain was still so jumbled from the three year mind control that the currant was unable to destroy her.”
“So you saved Leena’s life?”
“In essence yes.” He paused and then said. “I think I may have saved more then that.”
Alita couldn’t sleep that night. After talking with Jatar for nearly an hour she had finally let him go to sleep but she had been to excited to think about sleep. She had spent the last two hours devising a plan and in the end had come up with the perfect idea. She would wake Jatar up at about noon and run it by him first and then if seemed good to him they would execute it immediately. The sun was up now and she had spent the last half hour or so debating whether or not she should call Sira and tell her the news but in the end she decided it would be best to surprise her.
What would Sira think when she found out that after three years her husband was still alive and trapped in the forest by some mental currant by some maniac people that apparently had stronger mental abilities then Juptans.
At noon Dr. Utopia finally got there and she gave him a quick update and told him to please send Jatar down to office. Fifteen minutes later he entered her office and sat down across from her.
“Can you mind control animals?” Her question came fast and it took Jatar a minute to respond.
“Yes. Why?”
“Because I think I might know how to rescue the others.”
“How?”
Alita stood up and rounded the desk. She motioned for him to follow her and left the room. They went through a series of halls and she led him to a door that was dead bolted the room was pitch dark inside and she flipped a switch inside the door, pulled him inside and closed the door behind him.
The room was highly secured and it was filled with every kind of weapon he could imagine. “This is amazing!” Jatar exclaimed. “But somehow I doubt weapons are going to help.”
Alita smiled. “That’s because you haven’t seen Leena’s ultimate weapon.” She led him to the other side of the room and pulled a switch. The entire wall lifted revealing the biggest creature Jatar had ever seen.
“What is that?”
“It’s a dragon her names Seurmiera. She’s become pretty vicious in the last three years but if you can control her we might be able to fly over the currant.”
Jatar was nodding as he came in for a closer look. “I think this just might work.”
His nose was growing back with amazing speed and he was able to easily plant suggestions in the dragon’s brain. “How fast does it usually take the nose to grow back on Jupiter?”
“It doesn’t. Once you break your nose on Jupiter it never grows back.”
Alita had thought carefully about this and then said “We better be careful who we tell about that.” Jatar nodded and went back to work.
They worked for about and hour before they were suited up with as many weapons as each of them could carry. Then they climbed carefully onto the dragon and Jatar led her toward the forest. “There’s the currant” Jatar said pointing down into the forest. “It runs along the entire length of this fence but your right it doesn’t go up very high.”
They located the village easily enough and Jatar directed the creature to swoop low. Some of the people saw the creature and they began to run for cover. Seurmiera roared and some of the people fell to the ground covering their ears. They landed in the center of the village and Jatar jumped off the dragon. “By the order of the Zotac all 80 of your prisoners must be released at once and your leader Mernas is to be immediately escorted to the Zotac’s palace to be held on trial. If you do not meet these demands then your village will be destroyed. You have an hour to comply.” Jatar jumped back onto the dragon’s back and the dragon took off. They flew a couple miles away from the village and landed again. “And now we wait.”
Matthew stood between Rowel and Adan in the village square waiting to see the dragon over head. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on. All he knew was that Linda had found them and had now sent Alita and this strange creature to retrieve them. He wasn’t sure who the creature was but why shouldn’t Linda have hired new people after three years.
They stood in the square for an hour before they saw the dragon again. It landed close by and the alien jumped off again. He instructed them to head in the direction of the city informing them that the barrier as well as the fence had been removed in that area. Matthew wanted to see Linda again and he tired to remind himself that she had changed but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get the thoughts out of his head.
They were a ragtag group of people as they walked through the forest and when they neared the gate he saw that sure enough it had been destroyed. A couple of the more courageous people stepped forward and walked bravely through the gap nothing happened. The others looked around and then like a tidal wave they all ran through the opening. There was great celebration among those who had been prisoners for so long and slowly they dispersed in the directions of their homes to greet the loved ones they hadn’t seen in 3 years.
Rowel and Adan turned in the direction of the palace and Matthew decided to follow them.
When they arrived at the palace they found that the dragon had already arrived with their prisoner who had been locked in the dungeon.
A Month Later
Linda sat in a bed of pillows her hands twisting a sting in her hands. She had come out of her stupor well enough thanks to Mernas agreeing to work with Jatar in exchange for her and her people’s safe passage off the planet. She had restored Linda to near perfect health and now it was just a matter of rest to get her back to the Linda everyone loved. Mernas had instructed a recipe of different types of herbs on the planet that when fed to Tidwit and Seurmiera kept them sane and back to their old selves and then her and her people were gone.
The reunion between Rowel and Alita had been one to remember and before any questions could be asked or stories be told he had asked her to marry him right on the spot. But it was nothing compared to when Sira walked through that door with Mella and seen her brother and husband. Mella had been frightened at first by Adan’s twisted appearance but she had taken to him quickly enough and now you could hardly tell that the two of them had ever been separated.
Linda had agreed that Jatar could stay on the planet but informed him that he had to live in the palace being that the Imaginese people didn’t take well to aliens. So he had created a lab in the basement where he constructed experiments to keep him busy.
Linda continued twisting the string in her hand as Matthew came and sat down beside her. “How are you feeling?”
“Better everyday.” Linda was well aware of what had happened between her and Matthew and now the air between him them was awkward.
“I’m sorry about what happened between us Matthew.” Best to get it out in the open.
Matthew leaned forward. “Nothing happened between us Linda. Not really. It wasn’t really you I understand that.”
Linda nodded and then looked up at him. “I want you to understand Matthew that I thought about you everyday after you left until the day Jatar took over and as soon as I was released finding out you were dead just about killed me.”
Matthew reached over and grabbed her hand. “I know Linda.” He let go of her hand and stood up and walked back over to the window.
“What is it Matthew?”
“Linda there’s something I need to tell you before we go on.” Her heart skipped a beat and she feared what he might say. She nodded and he continued. “I’ve spent the last three years looking for Christilone.”
“You what? I thought I told you not to waste your time?”
“But it wasn’t a waste of time Linda.” He was at her side again and Linda’s eyes widened slightly.
“You mean you found him?”
“Yes!”
“Where? Who is he?” Matthew hesitated for a moment and she asked again. “Who is he Matthew?”
Matthew sighed. “He’s my dad!”
It took Linda a moment to comprehend what Matthew was saying and then she gasped. “You mean you’re a …an Imaginese?”
Matthew nodded. “Albino to be exact.”
Linda was really shocked at this. “An albino?’
“Yeah!”
“I remember now.”
“Remember what?”
“Three years ago when I rescued you from Mars. You were invisible I had forgotten I don’t know how you did it I was talking to you but I didn’t know you were there standing in front of me. Suddenly you appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t think about it again I was too concerned with getting you back here where it was safe.”
“So you mean I can turn invisible?”
“You’re an albino Matthew. The only albino we’ll have for a thousand years. I don’t know how exactly but your going to change Imaginess.”
“So what else can I do?”
“Only you can figure that out. Invisibility might be it maybe you’ll have other skills that you’ll learn about I don’t know.”
“What about arms?”
Linda smiled. “You wouldn’t be Imaginese without them.”
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