Session 15

The walls of the sealed cryo pod seemed to press in on Faye. Only faint lights glimmered in the chamber stacked with pods upon pods. Serene sleeping beings held within each one. There was nothing serene about Faye's thoughts. She shivered, not from the cold—but from fear. Was this real or another illusion?

All around her the silence was crushing. Only the sound of her own cries to accompany her for an untold passage of time. She had long since screamed herself hoarse.

A brief flash opened in the chamber wall. A change in an otherwise unchanging world filled with nothing but immense loss. It caught her eyes, tearing them from staring at the lid of the pod that kept her imprisoned. In the distance of that gap a blur floated through. Further back in a tunnel stood a figure she knew.

Spike glared at her, arms crossed with a look of abject scorn. Without a word, he turned his back and stormed away.

Pounding her fists on the lid. "Spike!" She thrashed against it. "No! Don't go! Please, don't leave me here!"

Laughter echoed. The vile voice of Morpheus as he stalked around her chamber. Every peel left her heart shuddering.

Hot tears poured down her cheeks. When she raised her hands to wipe them, it drew the tubes implanted in her scarred arms along. She closed her eyes, trying to banish the image reflected in the clear lid. The post shuttle crash scars … all those scars! She was a hideous mess. How could she even be alive?

The cryo chamber, years of isolation. Decades of unwilling sleep. Her damp fingers traced paths on the lid. No one had asked her. No one had told her the cost. Everything familiar, everyone she knew had vanished from her life. Gone. Parents, family, friends …

"Were they ever really your friends?" Morpheus ran his fingers over the controls outside the pod.

Her heart raced.

"Think about it, Faye. Were they there to remind you who you were when you woke? Were they there for you at all? No. Not one of them. Classmates, co-workers, teammates … and yes, even your family. Once you were put on ice, they forgot all about you. When you were brought out again no one even knew your real name. What a pitiful shame."

"No! Let me out! I can't lose myself! I can't do this again!"

"Again? But look at yourself. You're a wreck after that accident. You haven't been through it."

Her body moved, but it shouldn't be able to. Not with the extensive damage. She gripped her hair and practically tore it out. "Ahhh! This isn't real … there was … I awoke … I wasn't even on Earth anymore … I fled into space. I found … yes … I was with others!"

Morpheus grinned. All around him the figures rose up out of the floor. Men she had conned. Women she had stolen from. Hundreds of victims spanning the years. People she had sidled up to and taken everything that wasn't tied down. One by one they turned their back on her. Disappearing, leaving her behind in a cold void of … nothing.

"They were nothing but a means to an end." Morpheus steepled his fingers. "Your end."

The parade of her marks continued, leaving her clawing at the lid. But on the inside there was no latch. No escape! No escape! No escape!

"You broke their trust. You are shallower than a puddle on the sidewalk, unable to form a meaningful connection."

No! That's not true. I have … I have …

Morpheus cocked his head. "You have? With whom?"

Practically hyperventilating she stared out into the chamber. "I kept coming back to them."

"Who? You mean the ones you used?" He snapped his fingers. Spike and Jet appeared, sneering at her.

Flattening her hands on the lid she pleaded, "Guys! Help me!"

"Tsh, why would we want to help a thieving good-for-nothing Romani? If that's what you even are, liar!" Spike crossed his arms.

Jet snorted. "How many times did you steal from us? Break the ship and leave us stranded?"

"Girl, you were nothing but trouble!"

Each word was a dagger in her heart. "No … I mean, maybe at first! But I learned … didn't I? Spike … you and I, remember that time we spent together on the cruise ship?"

Spike's intense narrowed eyes slapped the breath from her. "When you dressed me up like a trophy husband doll and paraded me around like a toy? Yeah! I remember your childish game."

"But … the time we spent, the stories we told … " she stared through her splayed fingers against the glass, eyes trembling, " … we shared … you opened up to me!"

"Huh. You're too stupid to realize that was just bullshit. Who would ever want to get close to a cold hearted bitch like you."

Her breath caught in her chest. "You don't … you don't mean that!"

Jet tapped Spike's shoulder. "Come on, pard. You were right. Never should have let a woman on board anyway."

"Stop! Come back!" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "I need you two! Please! Don't leave me here!" The lid wouldn't release her from captivity.

Morpheus appeared before her, his fingers toying with the buttons in a series of beeps. "What a shame. Once more there is no one left in the solar system who cares about you. Whose fault is that, I wonder? No matter, I can end this for you … sort of." He hit a button and the pod filled with a cold gas.

Her eyelids grew heavy. But the embrace didn't come in full. She lay there, staring as the ice crystals grew, aware of her body freezing in the cryo's grip.

No … not again … not another span of time … not without them! I need them. I was wrong … so wrong. A fresh tear tried to fall, stalled by the temperature. A gem on her edge of her vision.

Isolation … the cold and lonely prison seized her again. For how long? How long!

A shadow cast from the window onto the apartment's shoddy floor. Spike clutched the splintered door frame. A sound had drawn him out of bed in the middle of the night, the floor cold beneath his bare feet. But something was wrong. That's what sobbing always meant.

"Daddy? Did you hurt yourself again?" There wasn't a hammer on the desk with the nail sticking out of the wall. That was the last time Spike had heard something similar, so it seemed the most likely explanation.

Sitting at the desk by the window, his father turned, eyes puffy from crying. He reached beneath his glasses and tried to wipe the tears away. But the evidence returned as swiftly as he attempted to erase it. Pushing out of the chair, he came down onto his knees, arms held wide. "Come here, Spike."

In the quiet night his hurried steps thumped across the floor. His father scooped him up into his arms, holding him tight, trembling. "Daddy, why are you crying? What's wrong?"

His tears soaked into Spike's hair before he released the death grip. Looking down into his son's innocent eyes he forced a smile. "Everything will be alright. Kiddo, because you know what?"

"What?"

Gently gripping his shoulder, his father leaned in close, so close Spike could see the pin-pointed pupils adjusting in the dark as he inhaled the familiar cologne. "Never forget—family always protects one another. We'll do what we have to to make sure you're safe." ...

Spike opened his eyes. The dim light caught Morpheus's chain around his ankle. The cold from the stone seeped into his back where he leaned against it. Hugging his knees to his chest, he took a deep shuddering breath. "Your plan really worked great … didn't it, Dad."

Flopping his forehead against his knees he tried to will himself back to sleep in the grips of this wretched world, taking no comfort in the knowledge … that had been a real suppressed memory.

Each beep marked their pulses. Jet stood between the two beds, his hands clenched in fists. He studied their slack faces. Faye lay with her head to the side looking as though she were merely sleeping and would wake at any moment. Jet almost believed it. He ran a finger down her cheek, hoping that somehow inside that hell, she could feel it.

Shifting to Spike's bed, he glanced at a small bandage taped across his right temple. Beneath his oxygen mask a scruffy beard had grown.

Jet took Spike's left hand in his. "You look terrible with facial hair, pard. I'll make sure to ask them to give you a good shave as I leave." His throat tightened a bit. "I stopped by to … well, I don't think you guys know, but the last couple days Ed hasn't slept a wink. We've been busy in the workshop. Almost done with something. I need you to hang in there."

He went back to Faye's bed and held her hand briefly. "I'll see you both soon. I promise. You're coming home."

Pulling out his phone, he dialed a number and waited. "Hey Bob, glad you picked up. I need a favor … "

Jet sat at the bench in the workshop, tightening a screw on the cobbled device. On the floor, Ed leaned over her computer feverishly pounding out a code, her goggles glowed with a warm light. With her toe she ejected the chip and tossed it up to Jet. "It's finished. Plug it in. And this too." She handed him a wire with a jack on it.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Jet pushed the chip into the slot until it clicked. A small LED on the side of the head set glowed red. He plugged the jack in and held it out. "Should I put this on?"

"No." Ed didn't even look up. "Just watch the lights." She hammered through the key strokes. "The sucky worldy portal is special sound. Infrasonic. Below human hearing. We have a record of the wave." She hit enter. "But that's the thing with sound waves … stack them right and they cancel-cancel."

The light flickered from red to blue. Jet scratched his head. "Is blue what you're looking for?"

"Yes. That means it's a go-go. And with that if we adjust the wavelength a bit … "

Now the light faded from blue to green. Somehow the disco light effect wasn't comforting. "Huh."

Ed grinned and pulled down her goggles and threw her hands in the air. "Then Jet wakes up!"

"I wish we could do a real test. I'm not sure I like going in blind with a set of modified head phones."

"Does Jet have an alternate dimension handy for a test?"

He rubbed his bald head. "Uhh no. I don't. So … " he groaned, "by the seat of our pants this is. At least we know it catches my thoughts and translates them to your computer."

Giggling into her hand, Ed muttered, "Jet has a dirty mind."

"Uuugggg! Don't use those words, ok? I was frustrated and angry." He clamped a hand on her shoulder and stared her straight in the eyes. "I'm counting on you, kid. You're my lifeline in this. Don't leave me stranded."

She held up her own headset. "Ed won't get pulled in. Ed will be listening to you. Did you get a hold of Bob?"

"I did." He held the device at his side. "He'll meet us there. The least we can do is bury the remains of the victims, maybe even provide closure for some missing. Shit, here I am still doing police work. But first, we're breaking Spike and Faye out. Now, what was the info you found on this guy?"

Ed pulled up a file. "It took a while to locate this. Government kept it super secret. Buried waaaaay deep and scram-scrambled. He was a bad bad man."

Bad indeed. Jet stared at the screen, their opponent became evident.

"Dr. Lysander Selinofoto, a research psychologist stationed at Somnus in the 2040's-2050's. Head of project Morpheus. So that's where his name came from. Somnus, located in the remote Mendel crater, was a secure military test facility with the capability of completely locking down the subjects, essential for the nature of the tests. Project Morpheus had been the brain child of Selinofoto who had teamed up with another ambitious study. The end game was to create a method to walk in another man's shoes, or quite literally—their body."

Jet rubbed his beard. "The specs look like they were literally aiming to subdue the original consciousness of an enemy victim and then replace it with a trained spy to infiltrate. What better way to take out an enemy than with the face of a friend. After a number of failures killing the first crop of recruits, and driving many of the second irrevocably insane, they hit a barrier. Something about the nature of brain synapses. They took wild stabs at solving the problem. Tried to get other scientists involved, with minimal success. But after years of no marked progress the military shut down the project in 2054. Selinofoto refused to leave the facility. A squad of soldiers entered Somnus to remove him."

Ed hit the key on the sound file. The squad leader called out over the feed, "We found him. He's holed up in the lab. Hands up! You've pushed your luck, doc. There's a court-martial waiting for you. Wait … what is that? Heh. You gonna throw a stone at me?" A series of thuds followed. Then … an eerie silence.

Jet's gruff voice rumbled, "No one who entered the facility was seen or heard again. Those sent to investigate, vanished. And Somnus became a dirty secret. Shut down, records buried. The crater deemed a nature reserve. Damn. Here we go again."

"A stone. Remember Ein said he had a stone."

"You think that's the key to this?"

Curled up beside Ed, Ein lifted his head from his paws and emitted a squeaky yawn.

She nodded vigorously. "Ein says so. Jet needs to the find the stone and destroy it."

"What does it look like? How do I wreck it?"

Scratching her forehead, she narrowed one eye before offering a deep shrug.

"Great … going in blind. Alright, I'm gotta get us airborne. Ed, it'll take a while, why don't you get some sleep."

She saluted, the momentum carried her backward into a flop. Instantly she started snoring as Ein curled up next to her.

Morpheus sat on the edges of the stone monument humming cheerily to himself, his foot planted in the middle of Spike's back.

Barely opening his eyes, Spike muttered, his voice weary but still rebellious. "You haven't won shit. No matter what you pull I refuse to be your bitch!"

Morpheus stopped and leaned forward. "Bitch … what an interesting thought resonance you have there. What was … oooooohhhhh my. Yes! That will be fun to watch!" He clapped his hands and leapt off of the stone, sloshing through the filthy mire beyond the end of Spike's chain tether.

On shaking arms, Spike pushed himself up fighting to hold his head higher though gravity yanked it downward. "I know this isn't real … nothing you do … now is gonna … phase me."

"Don't be so certain." He smiled, his fingers caressed the amulet. "I cannot argue, you are strong and resilient. A refined weapon of a body. Haha … but what would happen if that were taken away?"

Suddenly Spike felt dizzy, falling forward, he caught his weight on his arms. When he opened his eyes something was odd … odder than before. He was close to the ground but his arms weren't bent. His fingers seemed shorter—no, his whole hand was smaller.

"What the hell?" Spike blinked and grabbed at his throat. The voice was way too high. Scrambling backward against the stone, he discovered by some weird fluke his body was healed. Now dressed in torn jeans with worn canvas sneakers, a ratty long-sleeved t-shirt with a vest over it. His limbs were shorter, scrawny, half-starved. By rough estimation he knew if he stood up he'd be half his previous height.

His eyes widened in horror. "I'm a kid!"

A thunderous growl rent the air freezing Spike's blood. Out of the dark edges of the room a set of snarling fangs materialized.

Morpheus waved. "I'll just leave you two get reacquainted."

Spike's heartbeat pounded, threatening to break his thin pre-adolescent ribs. He turned on his heel into a flat out run. The worn soles of the sneakers slipping and stealing his momentum. The dog was gaining on him. The chain clanked behind him, riding up and down on his right ankle.

Oh fuck! The chain!

See You Space Cowboy