ARC OF THE IMMORTALS Book 2
Time Rifts: 7 / An Outside Force
Recap: Jac focuses on details — his hand on the hatch which was gone has reappeared. He connects with Touzdae to protect her and encourages her to protect herself. She returns from her 20-hour trip shaken.
Recap continued: They apologize to each other for acting-out behaviors. Touzdae describes the feelings of someone trying to pull her out of her body. Jac acknowledges her fear. He fills her in on the Entu Monk incident.
She relates her travels into the future, how future Jac talks about the golden arc, simultaneous time, and longing for her future self and family.
They sleep together and make love.
The new episode begins:
Jac entered her auric field interdimensionally and came back.
“Nothing?” She asked stretching.
“I wouldn’t say nothing at all, but… whatever or whoever tried to take you was well concealed. I can tell you that they were about to turn on a molecular decompiler. So they weren’t interested in taking your spirit but all of you,” Jac said.
“This frightens me to my core.”
Jac nodded. “I can see how…” He was at a loss for words and he sighed with exasperation.
“Isn’t there a way to prevent them access?”
“I have some ideas. But first: are you up for a little adventure?” Jac asked with gentleness.
“Is it safe?” Touzdae remained shaken.
“We won’t be leaving the station.” He wore a thin-lipped smile.
“Sure,” Nervous, she flashed a smile back.
He led her to a hatch in the floor. They descended a ladder into a dark lower level. A dim light grew to a medium intensity. Jac waved both hands in a cross near a door and it popped — ajar. He put his shoulder into it. The door opened. A light came up as he entered the circular space. Off-white stone with ribbons of embedded gold and turquoise revealed themselves in the disk chamber. She followed.
“Alabaster,” Touzdae said amazed adding, “Turquoise and gold.”
“Close your eyes,” Jac whispered. She closed her eyes. “Does this space remind you of anything?”
She opened her eyes wide and stared at Jac with awe and wonder:
“The Chalice Healing Space on the Fish.”
“Yes…” he turned in a circle and gazed at it. “I thought this could be a palette cleanser for all you and I have been through so far.”
“How did you know it was here?”
“I had a dream. I followed my dream’s cues and found it!” Jac said, excited.
“Can you use this place to find who is behind the attack against me?”
“As soon as I can get it tuned we may be able to see who tried to take you.”
“How long?”
“Not sure… But isn’t it comforting to know this is here, right?”
Touzdae slipped her arm around his waist and held him from the side for a moment.
“It feels so right in here.” She said relaxed. And she modified an inflection in her voice and asked, “Couldn’t you try it anyway? To look, I mean?”
“Step out and let me make a few adjustments…” Jac said and Touzdae left the room.
He sat in the center of the room and spread his being out in the space. After some minutes he invited her inside within ear-shot. She was out-of-sight in the covered curved hallway.
As he looked at that moment something or someone had tried to pull her out a barrage of images flashed in his eyes. Pushed across the room he skidded up against a curved wall. Blood trickled from his nose and he slipped, sliding down to the bottom of the disk — unconscious.
Touzdae let out a yelp and rushed in to see what happened.
A massive amount of images impinged on his visual cortex and then nothing.
He woke and looked around the room. He was in a bed. He had an IV in his arm, there were some monitors close by. Touzdae was asleep, slumped in a chair nearby. He closed his eyes.
The Entu Monk appeared by Jac’s bed. Jac saw him in his third eye.
He placed an apricot-pressed fruit slab with pictograms on it on Jac’s tongue. Jac spat it out.
A force opened his mouth. An the apricot-pressed fruit slab with pictograms forced into Jac’s mouth and held there. The monk, Tau, sent a telepathic message Please help me.
Tau faded out revealing Touzdae standing in his place. She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. The pictogram letters lit up and registered in his third eye for a nanosecond. A nightmare, he concluded. He opened his two eyes to see her.
“Are you awake?” she whispered from the chair.
“Ya,” his voice caught on the dry rasp in his throat. “Water,” he rasped.
She stood with a tube of liquid and held it between his lips and he sucked the liquid into his mouth.
“I am happy to see you, Jac.”
He smiled at her and closed his eyes again.
He opened his eyes and tried to get up but a force field held him on the bed.
“How long has it been?” he asked.
“Before I tell you that, I have some things to say. After two weeks while delirious you attempted to get up. You re-injured yourself. I had to restrain you for your protection.”
“How long?”
“Three weeks altogether.”
He closed his eyes tight tears streaked his cheeks.
“I have questions, so many I don’t know where to start,” Jac said.
“After that force pushed you into the wall of the alabaster room there were electrical discharges. You had to be moved. I was able to get you onto a mat and pull you into the foyer.
Touzdae explained the ordeal of getting him into the improvised medical bay. And his insistence on getting up too early and re-injuring himself.
“So when can I get up?”
“According to instruments that Comsa designed anywhere between forty-eight to seventy-two hours.
“Can you tell me what you saw before you were injured?”
“It was a barrage of images. It will take some to sort it out.” Jac said nervous.
“Solid food?” she smiled.
He nodded in the affirmative.
She left and returned with a plate of food.
“I should tell you of your fractures and the rate of healing for each fracture. It’s been remarkable. I suggest that I feed you to reduce unnecessary movement. Is that okay?”
He laughed.
“I see what you mean. My rib bones ache and there are some other pains.”
“Let’s eat some and then I tell you…”
He was hungry for solid food. They ate.
Touzdae told him of where the breaks were, what had healed, and what needed more work. “Pay attention to your left knee’s inner fluid joint, it needs work I know you can do.”
In the next week, Jac worked on freeing the fluid joint in his knee and healing the breaks in his rib. Touzdae did scans every three-day cycles. By the beginning of the second week, she released the forcefield.
Jac swung his feet to the floor; took the cane that she provided and stood. He took a few steps and used the cane to steady himself. It was painful when he walked, but he tolerated it well enough.
He climbed the ladder onto the main floor of the station and unhooked the cane from his pants. Within a day he left the cane behind. The pain was tolerable.
Touzdae had laid time charts of their excursions from a variety of perspectives.
“Where did all these come from, Touz?” He asked.
“They were in Comsa’s database. Also, I have the last two excursions of the Entu Monk that we can look at later.”
“Why only two excursions from the Monk?”
“The other files were badly corrupted.”
“Hmmm…”
“Thoughts?” Touzdae asked.
“Nothing. Later I’ll look at the files it may reveal some clues.”
Touzdae let out a long slow breath.
“I want you to look at this.”
She spread the maps of her five trips in a circle around her two hands and touched one finger to each map in succession. An interactive interconnected hologram leapt into the space above the map.
“Comsa, please record…”
“Recording.”
“Fascinating,” Jac replied as he walked around the table.
The images faded.
Jac sat down fast and his head wavered.
“What’s wrong, sweet one?” Touzdae rose and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“I felt something, or saw something.”
the previous chapter:
Thank you for joining me in the adventures that span lifetimes and worlds. Blessings, Passion, and Grace on your journey. May whatever your looking for — find you.
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Joseph Lieungh | Rebecca Romanelli | Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀| Ravyne Hawke | Dr Mehmet Yildiz | Kris Bedenian | Blaine Coleman | May More 💜 Tales | DL Nemeril | Rip Parker | Annelise Lords | K. Pearson Bradley | Libby Shively McAvoy | Alison Hollingsead