CHAPTER 72 – HUBRIS

"I don't want to get you pregnant again," Jack replied simply after he had again explained his reasoning to Elizabeth. "I don't want to risk it."

"What risk?! We've got condoms."

"But what if we use them all up in the first few weeks, then we'll be without protection for the rest of the voyage and at least a month or two after we land."

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. "At the rate you're going, I don't think you're going to need any of the twenty we have."

"I'm just trying to be prudent. Sensible. It has nothing to do with not finding you desirable. Believe me, I find you desirable. I just don't want to."

Elizabeth thought about putting her hands on her hips to look sexier but Jack- still damp from his cold shower - had already turned away and was pulling on a pair of pants over his undershorts which he had hurriedly put on.

"What about what you said to me before lift-off? How we'd have four months in privacy enjoying our time together, " Elizabeth reminded him.

Now it was Jack's turn to raise his eyebrows at her. "That was before a certain someone told me that she had forgotten to get birth control."

"I have birth control," she retorted.

"Not a lot. Are you going to wear that shirt? Because if not, I'll put it on."

"You have got to be kidding me?" Elizabeth huffed. She yanked off the shirt and handed it to Jack, who tossed one of her own tee-shirts to her.

"We have to save our supply of protection for a worthy occasion. When we have time."

"A worthy occasion?" Elizabeth pulled her tee-shirt over her head, relaxed her shoulders and took a deep breath. "Let's just hope you can rise to the occasion," she muttered.

Jack lifted his head from buttoning his shirt and looked at her. "What did you say?"

The sliding of the main door stopped Elizabeth before she could repeat herself, and two giggling and enthusiastic girls hurried into the Thornton quarters. Their mother, Linda, remained in the doorway, holding Aaron against her body with one arm, and using her other to try to pull her messenger bracelet out of his little hands which were clenched around it.

"He's so cute! We're teaching him how to talk! I think he said Jo-Jo!"

"Can we watch him again tomorrow?" Susie excitedly asked the second her sister stopped speaking.

"He really likes us!"

"We can be his big sisters!"

"Was he okay?" Elizabeth asked over the voices of the eight-year old twins as she smiled at Linda and quickly slipped on a pair of shorts which she grabbed from her locker. "I suppose after having twins, one little baby is easy for you."

"He was fine," Linda remarked, but her tone betrayed her lack of conviction. "Very sweet. Just . . .I've never seen a baby with so much . . .hubris."

Jack and Elizabeth stared wide-eyed at her and then quickly eyed each other.

"That's the only word I can think of to really describe him," the civil engineer explained to the couple who seemed oddly stunned by her choice of words. "Hubris. It means-"

"We know what it means," Jack interrupted. "Believe me. We know what it means."

"It's like he's not afraid of anything. And so curious. Don't get me wrong, he's adorable. Just . . . very determined," the civil engineer continued to explain. "It's like he thinks he can do anything. Even things he shouldn't be doing."

Elizabeth, averted looking at Jack, who was glaring at her with a look that seemed determinedly like an accusation that his son had inherited Elizabeth's personality. Instead, she pried Linda's bracelet out of Aaron's fists, thanked the three suite-mates for watching the boy, and set him down on the floor.

"Don't look at me like that," she ordered Jack when the door slid closed behind the suite-mates who had promised to be available whenever needed.

"Like what?"

"Like it's my fault he has a strong personality. You're the one in law enforcement. I'm sure he's inherited your personality. You're the brave one. I'm just a school teacher."

"A school teacher who decided to go to a far away colony by herself for adventure and to teach because it was her calling," Jack reminded her. "Or did you forget that?"

"Let's just agree that he's got both of us in him," she admitted. "And the girls want to babysit him again so he's adorable."

"Speaking of babysitting, I told you that we wouldn't have had enough time to have sex anyway," Jack said smugly. "I was right."

Before she could respond, a movement caught Elizabeth's eye and she turned to look at Aaron who was crawling towards the lights on the floor edge.

Elizabeth swooped up her son into her arms just before the baby activated the automatic door sensor, and sat down with him on one of the bottom berths. She didn't bother looking at Jack as she lifted up her tee-shirt.

She pulled aside one of her bra cups to expose a breast. "Don't worry, Jack, it's for him, I'm not putting on a show for you," she said in a condescending tone.

"I wasn't -. Never-mind," Jack mumbled.

"I've got to feed him now. Let's just forget about my attempt to seduce you. By the way, can you get someone to look at the shower room door? It doesn't open all the time. Unless you're happy about that."

"Why would I be happy about that?" he asked in confusion.

"So you can hide in there until every seventh day."

"That was a delicious breakfast, Abigail," Elizabeth remarked as the two women, each carrying a crate of food, walked down the corridor to the Cafeteria's kitchen from one of the lower levels. It was ten o'clock in the morning on the seventh day of the transporter's flight.

"It feels good to be back on the ship. Together like we used to be. What are you plans for today?"

"When Jack and Aaron get back from the pool, he's going to do rounds for a bit, and after lunch, I have my first class. It's just eight students, and voluntary but the parents are all interested in it, and I'm excited. We're starting with an English lesson. I thought we'd try some poetry."

"Open," Abigail demanded, causing the newly installed voice-activated system to slide aside the kitchen door. "Jack is such a good father. I think its adorable how he's teaching Aaron to swim."

Elizabeth set the box she had been carrying onto one of the stainless steel counters and began taking out the tomatoes. She handed the small round fruit to Abigail who quietly counted them as she arranged them into piles.

"Actually, it's Marisol who's teaching him. She apparently was an Olympic swimmer," Elizabeth explained before telling Abigail more about the pretty Inuit woman who had offered to help Jack with lessons.

". . . . Jack says he doesn't care what she looks like and he didn't even notice her figure, but I did . . . . .

" . . . . . and after she won a gold medal, and was a bathing suit model for two years, she took the money she earned and went to college . . . . .

. . . and then Jack said that if I wanted him to tell Marisol that she didn't need to help with lessons, he'd tell her and just do them by himself. He says it's my choice, but I know that she used to teach babies in a Born to Swim class for infants, and it's free lessons and she's nice enough and . . . . .

. .and then she said Jack was so much nicer than her ex-boyfriend who was more interested in her body than her mind . . . . ."

Abigail chuckled as she finished gathering the last of the ingredients for lunch. "She may have Jack's attention in the pool, but I'm sure you have it the rest of the time."

Elizabeth glanced at her watch -an antique piece she loved which Jack had bought for her on one of their country weekend bargain shopping trips. She realized that it was almost lunch time.

Juggling the flash-drive she was holding in one hand, she looked forward to watching the recent message from her family. She could have watched it in the communication center but she preferred to have it downloaded so she could watch it with Jack when he came back from rounds. He had left Aaron in her care while he patrolled Level B – which basically just consisted of forming relationships with the crew and passengers as the first step in "community policing".

Approaching the corner of the corridor to their cabin, Elizabeth gazed at the one-inch piece of plastic in her palm and felt a hint of sadness at missing her family already.

I wonder what they're doing right now.

Preoccupied by her family on Earth, she didn't notice the man coming towards her.

"Ouch"

"My head." Elizabeth put a hand to her skull and then looked at the person whom she had bumped into.

"You okay?" the man in his early thirties asked. Elizabeth recognized the medic symbol on his lapels.

"Yeah," she replied when she realized she wasn't seriously hurt. "I'm sorry. I wasn't looking. It's my fault. Sorry about all your stuff," she added as she saw the floor now littered with items which the man had dropped when Elizabeth had knocked into him as they had simultaneously turned the corner.

Elizabeth set Aaron on the ground and began helping the man – whose name tag identified him as Ensign Sooner - pick up his dropped supplies of syringes, packages, and papers. "I'm Elizabeth," she offered in a friendly voice as the two scrambled after several small slips of paper which went wildly floating down the hall as a nearby vent opened sending out a blast of warm air.

"Ensign Sooner", he replied as his head swiveled around the hallway to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

"Oh, Sorry," Elizabeth said meekly when she noticed Aaron, who was patiently sitting on the floor, was chewing on an official-looking envelope. She gently pulled the wet and mangled envelope from her son's mouth and handed it to the uniformed crew-member.

The man looked at it in a mixture of distress and disgust as he took it into his hand.

"You know babies," Elizabeth said apologetically with a helpless shrug. "They like to chew."

"It's okay," the man muttered as he looked at the envelope, wiped the baby saliva onto his pants leg, and then put it on the stack of his supplies. "Maybe you should get a teething toy for him."

"Yeah," she offered with a light laugh, "except they don't exactly have a kids store here on the transporter. And no delivery either. I was in such a hurry to pack for the trip that I forgot teethers."

The medic nodded politely, but then turned his attention to his messenger bracelet which had started beeping. He wandered down the corridor before Elizabeth could say any more.

So much for making friends on the is transporter, she thought with a sigh.

It wasn't until she and Aaron were back in their quarters that Elizabeth remembered the flash-drive she had been holding when she bumped into the ensign.

Darn it. I must have dropped it in the hallway.

Maybe the medic took it by accident.

But I didn't see it with him. I wonder if it bounced off to the side.

Elizabeth glanced at her son who she had placed in his enclosed berth. Jack had altered it to make the exposed sides even higher than initially planned, and the small boy had tried climbing out yesterday but had eventually given up. He was now busy playing with his feet. Elizabeth marveled at the human body's invention of toes.

He'll play with those things for hours. Certainly long enough for me to run out and find the flash-drive.

Elizabeth's head was bent down as her eyes scanned the hallway when she heard her name being called.

"Elizabeth, what are you doing?"

"I dropped a flash-drive of a hologram from my family. I was bringing it back to the room to watch when you finished with rounds."

"Where's Aaron?" Jack asked as he reached over and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

"He's in the room. He's fine. I just left him a minute ago. And he's in his berth."

"You don't think he can climb out?"

"I don't think so," Elizabeth said confidently. "He's good but not that good."

The couple scanned the floor again for another twenty seconds before deciding to just have another download of the hologram made when they stopped by the communication office later that afternoon. It was obvious that someone had picked up the flash-drive.

"It was hologram from the family, right? Not just from Julie?" Jack asked with smile. His stomach began grumbling and he looked at his watch.

Elizabeth squinted her eyes in confusion. "Why does it matter?"

Jack gave her a knowing look. "Because if it's just Julie, she's bound to be saying some totally inappropriate things about her love life, our love life, or her recent decision to study other people's love lives and recreate them."

"Good point," Elizabeth readily agreed. "Probably not a hologram we want inadvertently getting in the hands of others. I'll ask the ensign if he picked it up by mistake. We can check after lunch."

The couple had taken a few steps down the corridor towards their quarters to get Aaron for lunch when it happened.

The strange phenomenon that only happened in space.

"Whoa," a startled Jack said.

It happened so quickly, Elizabeth would have fallen when her legs lifted off the floor. If it was possible to fall. Which it wasn't.

"What's going on?" she asked as her hair floated in front of her face and she struggled to try to get some control over her body. Even though she had been in zero gravity before, it still unsettled her. The more she moved about, the more her body seemed to betray her until she found herself floating horizontally on her belly with her knees bent back and her feet facing towards the ceiling.

"Don't move so much," Jack instructed. "Just relax. It's probably just some kind of minor malfunction. Or some idiot accidentally pushed the gravity button and turned it off. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. Here give me your hand," he said tenderly as he held out one of his arms to her.

"How long do you think it will be off?"

"Probably not long. A few seconds until someone realizes –"

Jack was cut off by the voice coming over the intercom.

"ALL PASSENGERS, WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. I'M SURE YOU'VE NOTICED THE LACK OF GRAVITY. ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY WILL BE RE-INITIATED IN TEN SECONDS. PLEASE SECURE ALL LOOSE ITEMS WHICH MAY HAVE FLOATED AWAY AND BRACE YOURSELVES. TEN SECONDS TO GRAVITY RE-INITIATION."

Before Elizabeth could react, Jack had already slammed his hand onto the nearby intercom. "Do not re-initiate gravity. Repeat- do NOT re-initiate gravity. This is Officer Thornton. You need to hold re-initiation," he firmly ordered. "Confirm holding re-initiation."

"RE-INITIATION ON HOLD," the man on the other side of the intercom responded sending the words echoing through the entire transporter. "OFFICER THORNTON PLEASE MESSAGE THE CONTROL CENTER."

"Aaron," Elizabeth gasped when she realized the situation two seconds after Jack had already thought about would happen if the gravity was turned back on. "He'll fall eight feet and hit the floor!"

Jack was already speaking into his bracelet as he used his arms to push off a nearby wall and head in the direction of his quarters.

"Why isn't the door opening?" he questioned Elizabeth who had quickly floated behind him. They were hovering a few inches from the ceiling in front of their assigned cabin. The control center had agreed to suspend artificial gravity until Aaron was safely contained and there was no danger of him falling to the ground. Nonetheless, Elizabeth and Jack knew that the other passengers were undoubtedly anxious to have a return to a normal state where they could continue their duties and activities. If Elizabeth wanted to make friends aboard the transporter, keeping everyone afloat wasn't going to do it for her.

"I don't know. It just wont' open." She began repeatedly waving her hand in front of the light sensor and scanning her bracelet but it was hopeless. The door remained closed.

"Let's go through the suite," Jack told her.

The door next to theirs opened automatically for them, and they found themselves staring at Joyce and Susie who were giggling and hitting each other with a pillow as they floated in the center of the room.

"Just passing through," Jack said to the girls as he headed to the bathroom.

"It's not working either," he announced when the door on their side of the Jack-and-Jill bathroom didn't open. "Did you do something to the doors before you left?"

"No. It stuck yesterday once."

"But now both doors are stuck. I can understand one door having a malfunction, but both doors? And just to our cabin?"

Elizabeth waved her hand in front of the door sensor again. "Why won't it open?" she said in frustration.

"Are you sure you didn't put on some kind of lock when you were leaving?"

Elizabeth suddenly looked stunned. "Aaron must have voice-activated the locking mechanism!"

"He can't even speak," Jack reminded her.

"He can babble! He must have made a sound that somehow sounded like a command to lock the doors!"

"Stop worrying. He's not in any danger. He can't get into any trouble in there." Jack said over his shoulder as he used his hands to try to pry open the door to their quarters. The couple were now back in the main hallway waiting for someone from the ship's custodial section to remotely open the door. They had already tried using their voices to unlock the doors but Jack's authoritative command and Elizabeth's pathetic plea didn't alter the door's position.

"He locked us out." Elizabeth was on the verge of tears. "He's alone in there," she whimpered.

"He's okay", Jack assured her. "Damn it," he muttered under his breath when the door refused to budge.

"I've never left him alone before. Why did I leave him alone?! It was only for a few minutes. I had no idea. Stupid. I'm so stupid," Elizabeth berated herself as she nervously wrung her hands.

"You are not stupid, and Aaron is just fine. He may be a little puzzled by the fact that he's floating, but he's just fine."

"Are you sure?" Elizabeth asked anxiously.

"He can't get into any trouble in there. It's just a mostly sterile barren room."

"What if his face is pressed up against the ceiling and he's suffocating?"

"He's not suffocating, and if his face is pressed against the ceiling, he'll move it. He's not an idiot."

"Maybe he's banging back and forth against the walls like a ping-pong ball and he can't stop himself," she said anxiously.

"He is not banging back and forth like a ping-pong ball!" Jack exclaimed. "He's probably asleep. Floating and sleeping and not even realizing gravity is turned off."

"Maybe he's doing somersaults and can't stop," Elizabeth said worriedly as she over-thought the matter. "He'll throw-up and it will go everywhere. Floating all around him. And he'll play with it."

"Let's calm down and stop thinking disgusting thoughts."

"Officer Thornton" the voice came over Jack's bracelet. "Have you procured your son? Can we re-initiate gravity?"

"Not yet. Sorry but we need the door to our quarters to open first. We're waiting for an override. I'll let you know as soon as you can re-initiate," Jack spoke into the silicon and steel device on his wrist. "It should be any –"

Jack stopped speaking as the door suddenly slid open in a swift and smooth motion revealing their cabin.

Elizabeth hurriedly nudged aside Jack and propelled herself through the doorway by pushing off from the door frame. Jack was only a split second behind her as they hovered weightlessly in their small quarters.

Their small quarters which contained the familiar berths and lockers was eerily quiet.

Their bed covers with their edges attached to their berths strained upward now that there was no gravity to keep them neat and snug on the mattresses.

Soft fluffy pillows floated against the ceiling. Jack moved one out of his way as he glided to the far side of the room.

Elizabeth batted a stray sock away from her face and flipped upside down to look at the undersides of the top berths.

At the same time, Elizabeth and Jack jerked their heads towards each other. Both wide-eyed in a mixture of confusion and fear.

Their adorable fearless son was nowhere in sight.

The room was empty of Aaron Daniel Thornton.

Their little boy had disappeared.