Eleesa ran down the corridor of the ship as she finished pulling on her grey and blue jumpsuit. The overhead lights were flashing red, covering the whole deck in the color. She had always disliked the use of red for the emergency alerts. Every time she saw it she felt like she was drenched in blood. She blamed her father for that one. He and his stupid childhood stories of space monsters and aliens that would come onto ships, such as the one that she now found herself a crew member of, and devour all the living souls. And he gave such graphic detail to every story that it'd had this lasting effect on her.
'Damn it!' she thought to herself. She felt like she'd just finally gotten to sleep after one of the longest shifts of her life and now this. She couldn't help but wonder what that idiot Jack had done now. He was supposed to watch the plants while she rested. It wasn't like it was that hard a job. She had even shown him what to do if one should go down. But somehow, Jack always seemed to make even the simplest tasks difficult. And now this.
"Oops. Sorry," Eleesa yelled to the person that she'd nearly run over in her hurry to get to the number two plant.
"Eleesa!" came the yell back. "Where are you headed?"
Eleesa turned around to see Mac. He was the burly medical officer that kept tabs on all the people in the cryo-chambers and saw to any injuries that the sparse crew of six, the only people awake on the ship, happened to suffer with the help of his assistant Pat.
"To the second plant. Shawna called me from a pretty good dream to inform me that it was on the fritz. Why?" she asked.
"Damn girl! Didn't she tell you what happened?"
"No, she didn't Mac. What's going on?"
"One of the other ships sent out a change of coordinates signal to all the rest of us. And we can't seem to change it from our end," he explained.
"So? What's the problem? Maybe they found another planet to go inspect," she retorted.
"Oh, they found another planet alright. The coordinates take us right into the core of that planet."
Realization dawned on Eleesa as she took this information in.
"Oh shit," she said.
"Oh shit is right. Unless we can find a way to stop this ship, we're gonna be road-kill." Mac looked up at the blinking lights above. "Well, I'm needed in the Med Lab. You better get going."
"See if you can convince those plants of yours to turn us around!" he yelled from down the corridor.
Eleesa turned around and continued to run to the second plant. Now that she knew what had happened, she couldn't seem to run fast enough. It seemed like an eternity before she finally reached it. And when she did it was a total mess. The door was continually opening and closing. Sparks where flying ever where. It seemed like there had been an explosion inside.
Somehow, Eleesa managed to make it past the door into the room. Bits of exposed wire were everywhere. She turned to survey the damage and noticed Jack lying on the floor unconscious.
"Oh my god. Jack!" She tried shaking him awake but it was no good. Quickly checking his vitals to ensure that he was still alive, she looked for something to hold the door open. She found a large heavy block of metal that she proceeded to push into position. With that she dragged Jack out into the safety of the hallway and re-entered the room to see what she could do.
The room seemed to be shaking and after a moment Eleesa realized what was causing it. The plant was shaking. It was trying to get out of the protective shielding. And it was doing it! Eleesa ran up ducking and dodging falling bits of metal and wire. When she finally reached the plant, what she saw made her feel as if someone had just dropped a heavy stone in her stomach. There was a huge gaping hole in the protective bubble that surrounded the plant. Eleesa started to walk towards it and was overcome with a sudden and severe wave of fear, anger, and desperation.
'It knows,' she thought to herself. 'The plant knows what's happening. It's trying to save itself.'
Eleesa reached the opening and felt something reach inside her head.
'Help me.' The words were not so much spoken as they were felt.
"How?" she asked the plant.
'Help.'
Eleesa felt some invisible force pull her through the opening and into the bubble. The ensuing scream rent the air around her.
Bright light from inside the plant itself filled the room from top to bottom. Solid at first, it began to pulse rhythmically. The shapes inside began to flow in and out of existence. Changing, merging, becoming one. After what seemed a very long time the light ceased and a figure started to step forth from the broken shell.
Eleesa was clutching the glass as she stepped out of the opening. The very image of her seemed to echo leaving after images behind her with each new action or movement, as well as leaving the distinct impression that her body was somehow out of sync. Eleesa looked up at the room with eyes whitened in temporary blindness.
"Help… Help… me…. me…." The two voices echo past each other as they emitted themselves from Eleesa's throat, just as out of sync. "Help… Help… us…. us…."
Eleesa stepped out of the now dark and empty shell and spiraled down to the floor in unconsciousness.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Is she okay?" The voice sounded familiar to Eleesa's ears.
'Shawna?' Eleesa started to open her eyes. Her vision blurred by sleep and pain.
"Her vitals are stabilizing now. I still don't know what happened to her though."
'Mac?' They were standing over her. She tried to lift her head but couldn't quite do it.
"Welcome to the club. And there's no sign of the plant now either. It's as if … it just disappeared. Luckily though, the other three plants are still up and running."
'What's going on? Can't you hear me?' Her mouth seemed full of dry cotton as Eleesa realized that even though she felt like she was talking to them, her mouth wasn't even moving.
"So tell me Shawna, how did you manage to stop the ship?"
'Stop?'
"Actually, I didn't. We got another signal from the same ship as before. A landing signal this time. Was sent by someone named Rem Severem. She said there was a malfunction. That the entire crew of her ship was dead. She started to tell us more, but before she could finish, the whole ship just blew apart. Happened right as you found Eleesa and Jack. Speaking of which, how is Jack?"
Eleesa watched as both looked over to her left.
"Not so good Cap'n. He took some major volts. Burned a hole right through one of his lungs. I've got 'em stable…for now. But I honestly don't know how much longer he'll hold out."
Eleesa turned her head craned her neck over to see Jack in the bed next to her. To her, he looked like he was simply sleeping even though he had been put on life support. She noted that he did seem to be breathing easier than when she had initially found him. The heart monitor attached to him beeped slowly. Eleesa eased back into unconsciousness.
Eleesa awoke with a start to a loud noise and commotion around her. It was the erratic beeping of the heart monitor over near Jack.
"Give me 50cc's of adrenaline. Stat!" Mac's cry resounded around the room.
Eleesa's emotions seemed to become a whirlwind inside her. Fear, worry, anger, sadness, resolve. All of them and more seemed to be present. She had never known one person could feel so many emotions before. They welled up inside her until she thought she might burst.
Eleesa pushed herself up in bed and watched for a few moments as the others worked on Jack.
"Ugh!" she screamed as pain ripped its way through her mind and body.
Mac looked over. "What the hell? Shawna! Get her down! She shouldn't be up!"
"ARGGHH!" Eleesa screamed again as Shawna came over and tried to get her to lie back down. But Eleesa doubled over instead. Tears streamed from her eyes.
"No," she pleaded out loud in a small voice. She felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside out.
Eleesa felt the pain redouble as next to her the heart monitor let out a long drawn out solid wail of noise.
As the pain finally started to ease away replaced by a black pit of nothingness in her stomach, Eleesa noticed the quietness of the room. Shawna, though still sitting next to Eleesa on the bed, was no longer looking at her, but instead was looking toward the one other occupied bed in the med lab. Eleesa turned toward Jack and just managed a final glimpse of him before Mac managed to cover the body with a sheet.
What she saw sent shivers of pure terror through her. There Jack had laid, his head turned on its side, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, his mouth opened wide in a silent scream and his arm outstretched toward her, as if it were still grabbing for her. But what was the worst of all was the look on his face and the sudden definite knowledge that even in death he seemed to be staring straight into her very soul.
This time when the scream came it didn't stop for a long time.
Vash was shaking. His now empty hands twitching in the air. He couldn't quite bring himself to believe what he had just heard.
'Earth,' he thought to himself. 'It…. It can't be! It must be a mistake!' Vash could feel his legs start to buckle beneath him as he fell onto his hands and knees. He continued to stare wide-eyed at the floor in disbelief. Sweat trickle from his forehead, flowing past his nose to drop lightly from his face.
'It's not true,' he repeated to himself over and over again. 'It can't be…. It's just a lie…. Not true at all….'
"It's not true!" he yelled finally.
Eleesa knelt down next to him and picked up the shattered frame to look at the picture still lying within it.
"Yes," she said quietly, "It is true."
"How? How is this possible?" Vash stared at her in desperation. He needed to understand this. If what she said was true…. If she was on Earth, it would mean she was even older the he and Knives. But she was a human. Vash was sure of it. And humans don't live that long. Eleesa just kept looking at the photo as her face grew sad.
"Answer me!" He cried. He almost immediately regretted it when she backed away from him, a worried look on her face.
"There was an accident," she explained, now looking purposefully away from Vash. "On the ship. Most people have forgotten about the ships. Most people have forgotten about Earth. And the few who haven't tend to think of it as a sort of Eden. Like in this picture. But it wasn't you know. It wasn't an Eden at all." Her voice never raised above a whisper as she continued on.
"There were very few places like this even left. We had destroyed almost all of it. We tried to correct it. We started genetically engineering plants. Creating new life to replace the life we had taken. It worked better than we thought. Still, it wasn't long before we realized that the plants could do more than just give us air. They could literally give us energy. One plant could power a half a small town. Two could power a ship. With this knowledge, everything changed. We no longer needed to try to save our own dying planet, which many thought to be beyond repair. We could just go out and find a new one. And pray that we didn't repeat the same mistakes all over again. And that's what the governments decided we needed to do. To go somewhere else and repopulate.
"Teams of ships were sent out. Thousands of them. They flew in groups of fifty to hundred. Each group set out in a different direction. It was a safety measure. Just in case any one group couldn't find a suitable place to live, there would be other groups out there that might."
"I was on one of those ships. This place in the photo. I was twenty-five at the time. We were just some of the people who had done work with the plants. So it seemed only logical to pick some of us to stay awake on the long voyages to care and tend to the plants. But they needed more than just one person to tend the plants. They knew that one person alone…. They'd be driven insane by the loneliness. So each ship was given a small crew. In addition to the plant technician there was a medical officer and assistant, a captain, a pilot, and computer engineer. In our case, I was, of course, the plant technician. Mac was our medical officer. Pat was his assistant. Shawna was captain. Cannon was our pilot." Eleesa laughed at this. "His real name was Eric Parks, but we called him Cannon because he had a tendency to go off on all sorts of tangents anytime someone tried having a normal conversation with him. It was like shooting a cannon. He'd blow through just about any subject and there was just no way to stop him. Or to argue with him for that matter."
"And then there was Jack." At this, the smile once again faded from Eleesa's face. "He was our computer engineer. He wasn't even suppose to work with the plants. But we all had to learn the jobs of everyone else. Just in case something happened. And I needed someone to help out every once in a while in case two or more plants needed tending at the same time. So I taught him how to care for the plants."
"I should have never had him do that. I knew that he wasn't cut out for it." Eleesa's voice started to break and Vash could tell that wherever Eleesa's mind was, it wasn't here in the present. She was no longer answering his question. Hell, she wasn't even talking to him anymore. For all that it mattered; he didn't exist in her world right now. All the same though, Vash continued to listen.
"I was tired. It had been an extra long shift. Hadn't slept for days. So I had him take over for me. Told him not to call me unless it was an emergency. I was so stupid! I should have known better. But I was just so damned tired. Then something happened. Our ship was reprogrammed to crash into a planet. This planet. I was awoken by the Captain. One of the plants had gone down and I needed to go check it out. I didn't know it at the time, but Jack had overheard Shawna. Hell, I even thought he might have been the one to cause the problem in the first place. But he hadn't."
"Anyway, he must have decided to check it out first. I had been asleep. I wasn't even dressed. So of course it was easy for him to get there first," she said. Vash continued to watch Eleesa. Her eyes seemed to stare into a distant unseen place and her face took on a hollowed look to it. She didn't even so much as tremble.
Vash had the fleeting impression that Eleesa had locked away all her feelings about the incident for so long that they had withered away into nothingness. And now there was nothing left but the memories themselves.
"When I got there, he was already unconscious on the floor, badly injured from some sort of explosion." Vash could hardly hear her now. "I pulled him out. But there was someone else in there." Eleesa's voice started getting stronger again.
"She was in there…. She needed my help…. She was calling…to…me…, so I went to her."
"Went to who? Who was calling you?" Vash spoke for the first time since Eleesa had started talking.
"Huh?" Eleesa broke from her reverie and looked at Vash for a moment in total confusion, as if the answer should be obvious to him. "The plant."
"The plant?" Vash asked. He knew that the plants were sentient. After all, he had dealt with them enough in his life. Add the fact that he and Knives were evolved from the plants themselves, and suddenly for the first time Eleesa's story was starting to make sense to him.
"Yes," said Eleesa. "The plant. Somehow she knew what was happening. She was afraid. So I went to her. I stepped into the protective shell. To try to save her."
Vash grabbed Eleesa's arms forcing her to look him in the eyes. "And what happened next?" he demanded.
"A bright blinding light," she said as she pulled back from him. "And pain. Like my body was ripped apart and rebuilt all at once. A thousand times over. And…. And that's all I remember. I woke up later in the medical lab. The ship had received another signal by that time, from the same ship, to keep it from crashing. And Jack…." her voice trailed off.
She picked up the fallen photo and looked at it. Her hair fell over her eyes so that Vash could no longer see the expression on Eleesa's face.
"Mac said there was no way he would have made it. There was just too much damage." Eleesa stood up and put the photo sans frame, back on the shelf that it had been on before. "They told me I shouldn't blame myself. Humph. What did they know? And then, as if that weren't bad enough, the plant had totally disappeared. Not a single trace of her. As if she had never even existed."
Vash continued to watch Eleesa as she bent down and started collecting the shards of glass from the floor and the pieces of frame that they came from. There was so much he wanted to ask her just then, but before he could even think of where to begin, she had finished cleaning up the mess and had stood, once again avoiding Vash's stare.
"It's getting late," she said. "If you don't mind, I think I'll just call it a night. You can ask me more questions tomorrow."
Vash watched her walk up stairs, his mouth still opened for a question that he hadn't gotten a chance to ask.
A sharp pain throbbed in Vash's right knee. Suddenly aware that he had legs to stand on, he started pushing himself up and noticed a lone shard of glass that his knee had been resting on. A small droplet of blood was on the edge that had managed to puncture his skin. Vash watched, his whole body shaking, as the droplet slid ever so slowly and gently down to the floor. He was crying before the blood finished its journey.
'Knives did this.' The thought rose unbidden in his mind. 'Why? Why did Knives have to do this? Ruin so many lives? Kill so many people? And how am I ever suppose to wash his hands of the blood now?'
Eleesa walked over to the table in her room and rested her hands on it, looking down. It had been a very long time since she had allowed herself to think about the ship and everything that had happened to it. She usually kept her thoughts on the present, and when they did flow to the past, she restricted them to either her time on Earth or the last twenty years. She felt very strongly that everything that happened in between those two time periods was better left forgotten. A lone shudder ran through her body as a single tear drifted down her cheek.
"The plant you say," Vash started as they continued working on weeding and watering the garden outside. "She just disappeared? Like she died?"
"Well, at first that was what Mac and Shawna thought. But later they decided that something else must have happened when I was in there." Eleesa used her forearm to wipe the sweat from her brow. "As far as we can tell, she, the plant that is, was rather unique to begin with. She was the only plant that realized we were going to crash. The only one to react to it. We think maybe she had evolved beyond her bioengineering to something more. When I stepped in. Well, I guess the best way to describe it is that we sort of…," Eleesa paused, looking for the right word to use. "Merged, I guess."
"Huh," Vash looked over her way. "So, what you're saying is that your part plant?"
"Frankly, I'm not sure what I am anymore. All I know Vash, is that I'm definitely not a complete human anymore. But I'm not a complete plant either. So … yeah," she said smiling. "I guess I am part plant."
Vash smiled at her. "Well, it suits you well, what with your hobby of growing plants." Vash made a wide swing of his hand to indicate that he was referring to all the surrounding vegetation.
"Well, after we landed in one piece, more or less, we started building a city and after awhile I decided to go see the planet. So I took as many seeds with me as possible and went wondering around for a long time."
"Till about fifty years ago, when I ended up settling down here." Eleesa stood, brushing the dirt off her hands, and stared into the twin suns blazing down on them. For a brief moment her eyes alit on her own bedroom window and a ghost of a smile flickered across her face.
"So why'd you pick here?" Vash sat down next to the well to rest for a minute.
"Because it's nice and quiet, and it's still close enough to a good sized town that I don't want for anything."
"Huh!" Vash nearly fell from his sitting position at this news. "You mean we've been near a town this whole time and you didn't tell me?" he whined.
Eleesa laughed. It was the first real laugh that Vash had heard from her since the day before when she had told him everything about the fatal accident on board the ship. It made him happy to see her smiling again.
Eleesa looked back at him over her shoulder. "New Maine. It's about a four or five hour drive from here. Why?"
"Well," Vash said scratching his head. "It's just that I have these two friends that will be worried about me and I just think I should let them know that I'm okay."
"Well, there's a run-down jeep around back. I can point you in the right direction. You can go into town and send a letter," she pulled out a small pad of paper and a pen from her back pocket. "And while you're at it, you can pick up some vital essentials for me!"
Vash, who had started to stand up, found himself falling back to the ground again at the suggestion.
After writing up a shopping list for Vash that included foodstuff, bandages, ointments and many other things, Eleesa had brought the jeep around and handed the keys to Vash.
"Now, it's a long drive into town, and this bucket of bolts has a tendency to break down. If it does, take it to Trevor St. James. He's the local mechanic. Can fix just about anything. Also it will probably be easier for you to stay the night in town, pick the stuff up in the morning and then come back tomorrow night. If something happens and you need to stay longer, just call and let me know. Jake Millen runs the local hotel and he'll let you use his phone."
"Also," she continued. "I've filled the water can in the back. Just in case the jeep over heats on you. Make sure that you refill it in town before heading back out here."
"But what about Knives," Vash interrupted. "What if he wakes up?"
"You leave Knives to me. I've gotten pretty damn good at taking care of myself. Besides, if he tries anything…," she let the thought trail before continuing with a wry smirk. "Believe me, I can handle him if he gets out of line."
Vash wondered if the look on his face had given away his sudden tension as she quickly became serious.
"I'm not a cold-blooded killer Vash. Never have been." Seeing that Vash wasn't quite satisfied, she quickly added, with a smile, "I promise, I won't kill him, Vash."
Vash nodded once, got in the car, smiling happily and waving goodbye, he took off. Eleesa stood watching for a few moments as Vash drove away.
"Well, if that isn't a scene to make you cry, I don't know what is."
Eleesa, still sporting her serene, knowing smile, calmly looked back at Knives as he stood leaning on the door frame for support. In his hand was her gun, pointed straight at her head.
"Hmm. I was wondering when you were going to come out of the shadows," she remarked, turning back to watch the dot that was Vash go over the last dune in sight.
Knives had awoken very suddenly. His body still in pain and covered with sweat. He couldn't remember anything from the dream, but he knew that it had terrified him. And he hated being terrified of anything. Absolutely nothing had scared him since he was a child and Steve had first started terrorizing Vash and he. He'd seen to it that Steve died for that. He would see to it that whoever was responsible for this nightmare would also die. The truth was that even at his most congenial moments, Knives was not a man to be trifled with.
He took a few moments to look around the room he was in. It was a small room, sparsely furnished. There was one table, two chairs, a dresser and the bed he was sitting on. His clothes were draped over one of the two chairs. Moving slowly so as not to incite pain in his extremities, he swung his legs off the bed, stood up and walked over to his clothes. After he was dressed to his satisfaction, he reached down automatically to pick up his gun only to find that it wasn't there.
Knives thrust his fist through the table in sudden rage, breaking it in two.
'He took my gun!'
He had been willing to forgive his brother for shooting him the first time. He might even have forgiven him eventually for attacking him back in July City. This last attack, though, was a little less forgivable. But taking his gun? The gun he had made with his own bare hands? The twin to the gun he'd given Vash? That was totally unforgivable. For that transgression, Vash would die. Slowly, and most painfully.
He went out into the hallway and saw the other doors. One of them would be his brother's room. He was sure of it. And he might very well find his gun in there. He tried the room across the hall first and was disappointed to find that it was most likely the one Vash was staying in, yet there was no trace of any guns. In fact, the only evidence of his brother was the wet towels and an unmade bed. He picked up one of the towels and inhaled the fragrance on it. Yes, it was indeed Vash. He'd know his brother's scent anywhere. He dropped the towel on the floor, and stepped back into the hall.
He went down further and entered another room. Here he found a slightly more furnished room. There were a larger dresser in it, and a closet full of women's clothing. As well as a small bookshelf loaded with books of all kinds. A table with two chairs sat under the window and a nightstand with a single drawer sat by the bed. He looked out the window and saw a young woman standing in a garden looking up at the sky. Behind her Vash was sitting by a well. They seemed to be talking about something, but Knives couldn't tell what it was. He quickly stepped away from the window so they wouldn't see him.
'It wouldn't do for you see me just yet, brother.' Knives had to admit that this was getting interesting. His brother had brought him someplace with a helpless human in it. Oh, he could have fun with this one. He could make Vash suffer more than he had ever suffered before. Knives walked over to the nightstand and was absolutely delighted when he found a small handgun in its drawer. An evil, insane smile slowly drew across his face.
Knives left the room and slowly began to lumber downstairs. As he reached the sitting room he was temporarily taken aback by the loads of flowers and plants in there. Whoever this woman was, she seemed to have an affinity for plants. Knives let himself have a quiet chuckle.
'All the better to torture my dearest brother with,' he thought.
As he neared the door he heard noises outside. After listening for awhile he became aware that his brother was going into a nearby town and would be gone overnight at the very least. Leaving him, Knives, alone with this tender and sweet young woman. Things just kept getting better and better for him.
He waited for what must have been at least half an hour while this woman, this Eleesa, as he heard Vash call her, got the jeep ready and gave him directions and instructions. But finally Vash left. Knives waited until Vash was well out of ear and eye shot before stepping out. Eleesa was still watching as the jeep drove off in the distance.
"Well," he said aloud. "If that isn't a scene to make you cry, I don't know what is."
Eleesa looked back at Knives as he stood leaning on the door frame for support. He pointed the gun straight at her head.
"Hmm. I was wondering when you were going to come out of the shadows," she remarked, with a slight, easy, smile on her face. She then turned back to watch the dot that was Vash go over the last dune in sight.
"So you did see me in the window. I'm impressed…. By you. Now my brother…." Knives smiled as Eleesa turned back around and faced him fully for the very first time. "I have to say that I am very disappointed in him right now. He should know better than to leave you alone with me. Even if he does think I'm unconscious."
His smile grew even darker. Eleesa merely tilted her head and looked at him for the longest time. Studying every feature of his face before finally commenting, "Is the so?"
Knives grew furious at her blatant disregard for his power over her. He forced himself away from the door frame and leveled the gun more steadily at her.
"Yes," he growled. "And I'll show you why."
He cocked the gun. His finger started to put pressure against the trigger and stopped just short of actually pulling it. Knives stood in stunned silence. Try as he might, he couldn't make his finger pull the trigger. He looked at Eleesa, eyes widening in surprise as his mind was suddenly flooded with memories of his dream. The dream he kept having over and over again while he was unconscious.
"Wh…. Wh…. What," he stammered. "What did you do to me?"
Eleesa smiled at him, her head still cocked to one side.
"Let's just say…I like to protect myself." She started to walk into the house, pausing for only a minute by his side.
"Consider yourself neutered, boy," she whispered in his ear and continued into the house. She was halfway up the stairs when she added, "Indefinitely."
Knives was still standing in the doorway, gun gripped in his hand and aiming at were she had been. As realization dawned, a wide grin slowly spread across his face. And Knives laughed the small quiet laugh of one who's greatest wish had just been granted.
12
