ARC OF THE IMMORTALS/ Book 1 — Part 2

Pursuit: 60/ Reckoning Pt-3

Recap: Hanna gives Touzdae her blessing to go back to the Well of Souls. She tells Touzdae that she may be able to find Jac’s Spirit in the Well. Touzdae calls on her Hivbrit (Higher Vibrational Self) to be of service to-

Recap continued: — the deceased Jac.

Sarz goes to the defunct healing center in shock over Jac’s death and is aimless. She puts on an exo-spacesuit and bilocates.

Jac leaves his body after death and visits with his fama during his younger days and sees his fama’s eyes and someone else’s eyes in fama. He is yanked back into his dead body.

Baz warns Bendel of an intruder. The escape vehicle end of the Nez Fish separates, and the cargo bay falls apart. Bendel dies in space. All the ships including the Needlecraft are pulled down into the Well. All die.

The planet Ennis appears overhead.

Recap concluded and now…

Two ancient men sat in front of a viewscreen. It displayed a view from a powerful telescope on the planet Ennis of the Well of Souls.

“Thoughts?” one of the ancients said to the other.

“Emotions well up in me,” the other ancient responded.

“Are you urged to…”

“I am waiting to see what happens next.”

“Its been weeks,” the ancient bald one said.

“Oh.” he paused. “It seems like everything that could happen is happening now.”

“Do I see parallel timelines?” the ancient bald man wondered and laughed.

“Time is an illusion,” the tall ancient Maori said curtailing the other’s laugh with a sardonic and playful snort.

Touzdae, suited in an exosuit aboard the Needlecraft, said aloud via external speakers:

“Hivbrit take me to my highest service,” she said.

“Be careful, Touz — ” Maja began and stopped short as she bilocated away.

Touzdae clad in an exosuit landed in Nez’s realm aboard the Fish on the edge of a white-out and the Temple. The read-out along the bottom of the visor reported a minimal oxygen content outside the suit. Below the Temple, a withering copse of trees stood denuded of foliage. The white-out surrounded the dead wood.. She leapt off the dais. And tumbled down the slope of dried and cracked soil to the thicket of dying gnarled trees.

She made her way along the outside edge of the clump of dead trees. Down a narrow band of dried grasses and the white-out. There should be the water’s edge here, Touzdae thought. Dried crusted earth remained. There was water at the center where there once a lake existed. She found the crypt surrounded by dried cracked earth. She made her way toward it.

An unseen force transported Jac to his Captain’s cabin. The controls for the ship were on. A small red light blinked on the console.

Jac sat down and switched on the communication device. It was a white screen. A voice appeared in his head. It was the voice of Nez:

Jac are you alive? I am dying. This pre-recorded note is for you before my passing. The screen went blank and the message died. Jac saw the reflection of someone in an exosuit looking back at the blank screen. Is that me? Am I alive? Do I have a body?

Interior helmet screen on, he thought and a screen appeared with read-outs. Illuminate interior helmet — soft lighting, he thought. He saw his face inside the suit as a reflection on the blank screen. I may have a body, but it could be the suit’s thermal generators. Suit, please identify the primary source of heat.

A read-out appeared on the lower part of the screen. His eyes had trouble focusing on it. Slow the scroll, he sent a command thought to the scroll. It read:

“Primary heat source is your body, occupant of this exosuit,” it read. The only definitive proof I am alive will be the absence of my corpse. In what’s left of the healing disk, he thought, First I need to hear all Nez’s message.

Touzdae stood outside the crypt in her exosuit with thoughts of how to get in. In the midst of her thinking she transported inside it. Candle lights came up. She moved the heavy lid of the coffin aside and looked down into it. Nez was pale with death. Nez opened her eyes and looked at Touzdae who dissolved the opaque mask of the helmet. Touzdae sat in the chair next the the coffin.

“Could you help me up?” Nez rasped in a whisper.

“What?”

“Never mind,” Nez said and closed her eyes.

Listen with your mind, Touzdae, please… Nez sent the thought.

I’m here, Touzdae sat ready to listen.

Bendel was in the Fish’s cargo bay readying the Dark Ray Machine for operation. The extension unlocked. It was ready to go another nine feet for a total of eighteen feet. The cargo bay would need to be opened overhead. Bendel was not wearing an exosuit. The thirteen modules were in place. He ran pre-ignition checks on the DNA, the dark matter, and the dark matter generators.

“Did you check the integrity of the feet of your machine?” a voice came from an exosuit. It was a familiar female voice.

“Who goes there?” Bendel shouted out.

“Sarz. Did you check?”

“I don’t have to check. There’s solid turquidium around each of the feet. They’re reinforced with an EM charge passing through each of the four feet.” He looked down in the direction of the footing of the machine. “Why are you out,” he looked up, “here?” his voice lost its force.

She was gone.

Jac looked down at his body and noticed some color in his face. I’m dead, but I don’t feel dead, my body doesn’t look dead either, he thought and walked out. I must be a ghost. He was too focused on the body to notice the state of the space. He lingered in the passageway. Can anyone see me?

Sarz popped into the healing disk chamber. She examined the alabaster and turquoise walls reforming from the broken pieces. She examined Jac’s body. The heart made a beat every nine minutes. Satisfied that he was coming back to life, albeit slowly, she left.

I don’t understand how you are dying. Where is this poison coming from? Touzdae sent thoughts to Nez.

If I knew I’d stop it, I don’t know, Nez thought back.

Jac appeared, exosuit and all, at the controls in his aft cabin, in the escape craft. Why am I here? What is my task, Hivbrit?”

He had an urge to go forward. He grabbed a laz pistol and holster by instinct on the way. A severed pipe rolled through the passageway. He caught it underfoot. Scanned it, and determined it was safe. He picked it up.

He turned on his external speaker. This will be the test. Will I be seen? he thought. At the edge of the cargo bay, he spoke:

“Bendel, I know you’re out there,” he said out loud, volume up.

“Show yourself,” Bendel yelled back. Relieved, Jac sighed, Maybe I’m not dead.

Jac moved into the open. A laz ray sang through the open space. Jac ducked to the side and down. The ray cut into the port side of the cargo bay and made a hole. A second ray from Bendel’s laz gun hit the front of the suit and was deflected. Jac un-holstered his laz pistol. The air was being sucked out of the bay faster. Bendel retreated from the bay into the forward passageway as air exited at an alarming rate. Jac holstered his weapon and took hold of a bulkhead as the hole widened. Jac’s magnetic boots tightened his hold on the deck. All the air had escaped. Jac retreated and picked up the pipe. He moved forward to the machine.

Jac used the X-ray lenses on the visor to scan the footing to check whether Nez’s information was correct. It was. Black roots extended out of two of the four footings below the passageway. Jac looked through the passageway’s emergency airlock. He saw Bendel and Baz with laz canons. He wondered why rebreathers were used instead of exosuits. He saw that dozens of black roots were sucking energy from Nez’s central neural processors. He calmed himself with his breath. The X-Ray scopes fluttered, derezed, and failed.

An alternate route forward — I must go outside the ship into the Well, Jac thought.

One or two chapters left until the end of the story / book.

If you want to catch-up on any chapters you missed in part 2 [Part 2 contains link for contents of part 1 for reading with continuity]:

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Thank you for joining me in the adventures that span lifetimes and worlds. Blessings on your journeys and odysseys. (If you do NOT wish to be tagged, let me know, and I’ll tag you not):

Alison Hollingsead | K. Pearson Bradley| Dougfrombk | Rebecca Romanelli | Joseph Lieungh | Dr. Preeti Singh | Ravyne Hawke | Dr Mehmet Yildiz | Kris Bedenian | Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 | Blaine Coleman | Lee David Tyrrell | DL Nemeril | Rip Parker | Annelise Lords | Libby Shively McAvoy |