Helix (2 page)

Nero glanced at her, and he chuckled at her expression. “You are wearing the bands of one who is newly restored, and I am dressed as your physician. No one will interfere with you unless there is good reason.”

“Wait. This happens a lot?”

He shrugged. “We all came through a storm, a rift, a bolt or a power fluctuation. I don’t know who the first restorer was, but he or she set up the equipment and procedures we use today to seek life in those who fall.”

“Fall?”

“Everyone who comes to us falls. When we leave the facility, I will show you.”

He kept a slow pace for her, and she occasionally felt the caress of his hair or the colder touch of one of the beads attached to a braid skimming across the back of her thighs.

Questions popped up in her mind, but she throttled them back as they ended their walk down a hall and daylight flirted with her vision.

When they stepped into the light, she had trouble breathing. Nowhere on all of the worlds that she had visited had she ever seen something like the vista in front of her.

Ancient buildings, carved, grown and twisted out of stone were dotted around rivers, streams and creeks of a liquid that hummed with light. If that were water, she would eat the metal bodysuit she was wearing.

Nero kept her moving along the stone pathway that was aimed at an arched bridge. They didn’t speak as they walked, and Harmony was beginning to wonder how long she was going to be expected to keep moving. Her legs were already aching.

It was so strange. She was used to using her entire body to control her ship. To have her limbs feeling like they weighed two tons was a new experience. She hadn’t felt this weak since she was back on Earth.

“What do you think of the skyline?”

“The city is interesting. It looks like it was cobbled together by dozens of different races over time.”

He grinned. “That it was, but I meant our sky.”

She looked up to be polite, and her throat locked again. A ragged tear of light split the sky and spilled outward in gradually fading waves. “What the hell is that?”

“That, Harmony, is where you fell from. That is our gateway to our homes, but none of us have been able to return.”

He kept leading her carefully as she stared up at the sky. He had one arm on her back and the other on her forearm.

“I fell out of that?”

He chuckled. “You did. We all did.”

“How many people are here?” She resumed looking around her and ran her hand over her bald skull out of nervous reflex.

“At our peak, it has been twelve thousand. Every few decades someone cobbles a ship together and they set off to explore more of this strange pocket in space.”

“Is that what this is?”

“As far as we know. All of our instruments indicate that it is an extension of our own universe, but we can’t get out.” His tone was matter of fact.

“How long have you been here?”

“I have been here five hundred years and have been a restorer for the last three hundred.”

“What?”

“The energy that restores us keeps us from aging. You will never age another day.” He smiled.

She stopped and smacked her bald skull. “You mean I won’t grow my hair again?”

He blinked. “Your body didn’t have hair so it was not set in your helix when you were set for restoration.”

Quickly she checked and she had her brows and lashes. “Oh, thank goodness.”

“Your body had brows and lashes, so they were kept in the pattern.”

“Pattern?”

“Your genetic pattern.”

They were on the bridge, and she looked to either side of the pathway, one direction led into the heart of the strange city and the other would take her past a mausoleum.

Nero turned them toward the mausoleum.

“Remember, keep your head high as if you are simply on a tour.”

She nodded and resumed her light grip on his arm, her skin glowing a dusky bronze in the light of the river.

The mausoleum doors opened and a guard nodded as they passed. He greeted Nero with a curt, “Restorer.”

Nero nodded back and led Harmony into the surprisingly clean medical facility behind the doors.

Clean white stone floors reflected a gold polished ceiling. They walked the hall for a few minutes before Nero turned them down another hall where the word
storage
was carved in elegant script. Harmony had no idea how she was able to read it but that was yet another question for the pile.

The room was cool and the waist-high metal plates in the wall were indicative of the storage of the dead across the universe. Harmony was suddenly a little afraid of what she would see when Nero opened that plate.

“Are you sure that you want to see yourself? You were not…in one piece.”

She winced. “I want to see what was left of me. I need to recognize that my body isn’t simply running around without me somewhere and you grew me for your own purposes.”

He blinked at that. “Very well.”

Nero let her go and crossed to one of the panels with a number on it. He ran his hand along the top, and it hissed open, extending outward with a glass column containing what were human remains.

The skin tone was what told Harmony it was actually her. That and the tattoo on the inside of the right wrist that she got right before she left for the Alliance. Nothing else was really recognizable as a whole.

“What did you use for tissue? This all looks pretty damaged to me.” She remained calm as she looked over the pieces of what had been her body.

“Your heart was surprisingly strong. It contained viable cells, and with the help of some marrow from your left leg, I was able to get your pattern and begin restoration.”

She swallowed and nodded. Her bald skull was lying there; the jacks that decorated her temple and forehead were still visible. That was the reason she shaved her head, her normal hair was so springy that it got in the way of the jacks.

It had been a business decision to shave her head, but now, she wanted her hair back. If she didn’t need jacks on this world, she wanted her hair.

“Have you seen enough?”

She looked down at her inner wrist. “Do you have tattoo artists here? I feel naked without a memory of my world on me.”

“I am sure we can find someone. Are you sure you want to mar your new shape?”

“My body, not yours. I want to make sure it is marked as mine. It is important to my mental health and balance. I am in this body now. I need to make it my home.”

“Fair enough. But do you need to mutilate it?”

She gave him a long look. “Did you need to pierce each ear in nine places, wrap your hair in beads? I believe that those are cultural markers.”

He coloured slightly. “They are. You are right. They were to make me feel more like me. My family wore the beads as status markers, and my people wore the long hair to denote availability. When I saw you were bald, I thought you were widowed. Is that the case?”

She shook her head. “No. I had my hair removed so that the jacks in my head would not suffer interference. The hair of my race is quite resilient to compression and is difficult to control in situations like that.”

“So, you would like it returned.”

“Well, am I going to have to have jacks installed in my skull for any purpose?”

“Um…no.”

“Then, I would like hair again. I miss it. It is hard to handle until I can tie it back, but it is mine and I love it.”

“I will add it to your aftercare.” Nero smiled slightly. “Are we done here?”

“Yes. I am satisfied that that is me. Thank you for salvaging and transferring as much as you were able to.”

“You are welcome. You are the first female to fall in over two decades. It was a bit of a shock, but you can expect many different courtships over the next few months.”

“Great. What am I going to do here?”

“We can run an aptitude scan in a few days. For now, let us go back to the restoration hall and get you settled into your quarters for the first week.”

“What happens then?”

“Then, you will be out in the general population. Enjoy both experiences for different reasons. Social society here can be a little surprising.” He grinned and offered his arm to escort her out of the storage area.

She looked back at her body and watched the wall slowly absorb it again. “I am beginning to believe that nothing that I am looking at is precisely what I think it is.”

“Good. That is an excellent start.”

They paced out of the storage area, through the white marble halls, past the guard and out the door.

Harmony was numb. She was dead but not. Her new body felt alive, felt normal, but it wasn’t going to age if she stayed on this world or comet or whatever. Her future stretched in front of her in an endless wave of uncertainty, and it was while her mind was reeling and her feet were simply walking her along with Nero at her side that she heard it.

There was a voice singing to her, soothing her, telling her that everything would work out all right. She was not alone, she was meant to be where she was.

“What is it? Are you feeling all right, Harmony?” Nero’s voice broke through the song.

She blinked and stared at him, looking around for the source of the sound, but there was only the rift in the sky and the empty streets.

“I think I need to rest. Seeing my body took more out of me than I had imagined.” She smiled weakly, and he nodded with understanding.

They made their way back to the restoration centre, passing two men who nodded politely to him and ignored her. She didn’t care. The song was back, and it filled her thoughts.

What the hell is singing to me?

Harmony grimaced at her reflection. All the marks that had shown bits of her life were now gone. The scar she got from a dog bite at age three was gone, as was the portrait of her mother that had been tattooed on her shoulder.

Her body was fresh and new, but there was something sad about it. It was like part of her had been taken away. The part that had shaped her character and made her the woman that was standing there now was gone.

The metalwork was now an extension of her new self. She needed it for another three weeks, and then, she would be free of it.

A knock on her door brought an end to her personal absorption. “Just a minute, Nero.”

She opened the door and smiled at him. “What is it today?”

He chuckled. “Hand-to-hand combat to get your body moving again. You did fine on the cardio yesterday. You need more muscle tone.”

“Combat is the way to go?”

“Well, I need my workout too.” He grinned.

His hair was in one thick braid down his spine, glittering as they walked to the physical fitness centre. It was a five-minute walk in the medical sector of the city. For someone in her condition, being close to everything that she needed was a bonus.

They started out easy, striking and circling then striking again. She got tired easily, but she kept going as her body started to ache with every impact.

Nero watched her and called a halt. “That is a good start. Sit, drink some water and let your muscles relax.”

Harmony sighed. “This is taking too long.”

He laughed. “It is taking the exact time that it takes. Your species is a little softer than some and sturdier than others. Your body has to relearn its movements.”

While she sat and drank water, he keyed up his exercise program.

A solid hologram was generated, and Nero stepped toward the image of one of his own kind, turning his head from side to side before the chime rang that engaged the fighters.

Harmony watched for a while before closing her eyes. Nero was moving so quickly that he blurred in her vision. He was fast, damned fast. She could only see a blur of scarlet as he and the generated opponent made contact and smacked the crap out of each other.

She groaned, finished some more water and went to the terminal. She set it for body scan, and when it was done, it chirped its confirmation that it had an opponent scaled for her current physical status.

She stepped into the sparring space, and the hologram that she faced was her own. “Aw, that sucks.”

Harmony stepped toward it and saw it move awkwardly in response. “Okay, I get it.”

She moved step by step and watched as the movements of her partner gradually took on more grace. It was an effective teaching tool, she had to admit. There was nothing like seeing that you were weak as a kitten and awkward as a drunk stork to make you try harder to control your own body.

When she tired, she slowed, and the moment she had energy, she moved again, going through the tai chi-like moves that Nero had spent the last three days teaching her.

“That is an interesting pose.” He chuckled and wiped sweat from his forehead.

She didn’t spare him more than a single glance.

“I am going for precision in movement. Form will come later when my hands aren’t trembling.”

He watched her for another half hour before he called a halt. “Enough for today. As your physician, I am ending your exertion.”

She finished the pattern she had been working through and stood with her arms at her sides. Her heart thudded in her chest and her body gleamed with sweat, but she was proud of what she had been able to accomplish.

Harmony took a step toward the water cooler, and she stumbled. She heard Nero curse, and he came to her side, supporting her on the way to the bench. He got her some water and watched as she drank it.

“You didn’t eat this morning.”

“I am not hungry.” It was a lie. When Nero wasn’t around, the few men who were still in the medical part of the city all joined her at breakfast and made her uncomfortable. They were under rules to leave her alone physically, but they did not hide their interest in getting her into their beds.

“Well, you are obviously hungry now. We will go to the dispenser and get you a meal.”

Once she was stable enough to walk, she wobbled alongside him with his arm around her waist. She wrinkled her nose. It wasn’t like her to be timid, but the men here were aggressive to the point of hostility. She had never been in a situation where the women were so dramatically outnumbered.