Well, I made it! Merry Christmas! :D
Chapter Twenty-Four: Part VI and Conclusion
Frank strapped the silvery belt around his thick waist and turned to frown at his brother.
"You're sure this device will work?" he said.
"Of course," Ace assured him primly. "It's future tech from a parallel dimension, so I can't let you keep it. You're going to have to tell your wife the truth. But, for now… That is, for this—"
"I know," Frank growled, and sighed deeply. Gesturing to the delicate-looking control pad on the side of the glittering belt, he said, "So, I just push this here?"
"No, it's this one," Ace corrected, pointing to a textured button just under the main controls. "The image has already been programmed."
He straightened and gave his brother a serious look. "You ready?"
Frank met his gaze, then pressed the button.
A shimmering haze spread up, down and out from the vicinity of the belt, like a thick mist rising to conceal the GELF's hulking form. As the mist coalesced, Frank's furry shape seemed to change within it, slimming…shrinking…
The haze dissolved in a sizzle of light, revealing a tall man with straight dark hair, dressed in a crisp Space Corps uniform. Commander Frank Rimmer, as he'd been before the GESS experiment took its toll.
Ace stepped forward and poked Frank's shoulder.
"Hard light," he confirmed. "Like me."
"Do I look all right, though?" Frank asked looking down at his pale, furless hands, flexing his slender fingers. "I mean…you really can't tell…?"
Ace smirked at him. Frank's slurred GELF rumble seemed a little odd coming from the prim, pressed image of his brother's former self.
"The voice is a bit of a give-away, but I think you'll do. Let's go."
Janine stared at the specks of dark sediment resting at the bottom of her wine glass. Cinthy and Jamey had returned from their garden explorations like a pair of shrieking rockets, buzzing with energy and looking to play. Janine had told them to keep quiet, to take a seat and calm down, but they'd dived under the table, giggling. Now, they raced round and round like a pair of wild foals and Janine didn't have the energy to stop them…let alone join in.
Some kind of vid had been running for a while, how long she didn't know, projected against the inner edge of the dome. Janine blinked at it blearily now and then without really watching. Like her eyes, her thoughts seemed to drift, unfocused…
"Daddy!" Cinthy cheered suddenly, Jamey's voice peeping along with hers, "Mummy, Daddy's back! It's Daddy and that man – Uncle Arnold! Uncle Arnold found Daddy!"
Janine lifted her head to see Frank crouch down and open his arms to his children, his eyes filling with tears when they ran up for a fierce embrace. Looking to Janine, he took the kids by the hand and walked tentatively over to her.
Ace started to follow, but something about the look on his brother's face…a look he saw mirrored on Janine's…warned him to keep back, to let them have this time alone…
Janine stood slowly, her gaze fixed on her husband's eyes. For the first time in a long time, she saw something…a warmth, a depth she hadn't seen for longer than she cared to remember…
"Where have you been?" she asked him, and Frank knew she didn't just mean his absence during the anniversary party. He lowered his head and she touched his cheek, her own eyes beginning to sting when she realized he was crying.
"I'm sorry," he choked, his voice sounding oddly deep and slurred. "Janine, I've let you down, you and the children, and now—"
Janine shushed him, shaking her head.
"No," she said. "No, don't say that. You know nothing's been right since your mother assigned you to that project. Come, sit down. Sit and we can—"
"Janine, you don't understand," Frank protested. "Something's happened. I…I…"
"Frank," Janine said, her brow furrowing as she ran her eyes over his tortured face. "What is it? Why does your voice sound so strange?"
Frank turned a desperate gaze to Ace.
"Frank was tricked, Janine," he said. "The Project was an experiment. A genetic experiment."
Janine's eyes widened and she clasped a hand to her mouth.
"Frank, no…!"
Frank swallowed hard.
"If I show you…" he rasped. "If I reveal what's happened…what I allowed to happen…"
"Frank," Ace scolded.
"Whatever it is," Janine said. "Whatever they've done to you—"
"It's bad, Jani," Frank whispered. "You might…you might view me as a monster…"
"Just show me, Frank," Janine said. "No matter how bad it is, I have to know. I have to see!"
"What are you all talking about?" Cinthy asked. "What's happened to Daddy?"
Frank closed his tearing eyes and released his children's hands. Taking a steadying breath, he pressed the button at the side of the belt Ace had given him. The holographic image it had projected faded in a haze of light, revealing a hulking, furry GELF.
Cinthy and Jamey shrieked in alarm, but Janine stayed silent and very still. Slowly, she tilted her head, her thoughtful gaze fixed, not on his deformities, but on his eyes.
Frank tried to look away, but she moved closer, forcing him to meet her stare.
"We have been fools, Frank," she said. "We should have stayed on Mars. We should have gone to Earth, or out into deep space – anything to put distance between us and that…that selfish, heartless—"
"It wasn't only Mother, Janine," Frank confessed. "It was me, my ambition. My drive for a quick promotion blinded me, left me vulnerable to her lies. This is my fault, my darling. My burden. I can't ask you to—"
"Oh, don't be so stupid," she scoffed. "You're my husband. Mine. No matter what that woman has done to keep up apart, as long as I know… As long as I feel that you love me—"
"Can you still love me?" Frank asked, and she took his hand, her expression pained.
"This has been done to both of us," she said quietly. "To our family. The burden isn't yours, but ours to share. Of course I still love you, Frank. I just…"
"We're going to fight, Janine," he said. "Ace has a plan to force Mother and Metzeler to find a cure. There's a chance, if it works… I might, once again, be the man you married."
"You're that man right now," Janine said, and sank, sobbing, into his furry arms. "Oh, Frank, I've missed you. I've missed you so much."
Cinthy looked at Jamey, and they both looked to Ace.
"Is it true, Uncle Arnold?" Cinthy asked. "Is our Daddy really a Yeti now?"
Ace laughed despite himself.
"A Yeti? No. But, his genes are very sick right now. There's a chance he might get better, but it could take a long time. Until then, your daddy is going to need a lot of love and support, from your mother and from the two of you. Do you think you kids can give him that?"
"Well, sure," Jamey said.
"Of course we can!" Cinthy exclaimed.
"Then, why don't you go show him," Ace prompted. "Right now."
Ace watched with a small smile as Cinthy and Jamey ran toward their parents, the whole family cinching together in a warm and tearful embrace. Then, he turned his gaze to the nearby hedge – just in time to catch sight of something moving among the leaves…
"I'll take that, thank you," he said, striding up behind the woman who had been surreptitiously recording the tender scene and confiscating what looked like a small camera-pen she'd tucked behind her ear.
"Oi!" she exclaimed, then stared, her eyes widening when she saw it was Ace Rimmer. "Oh… Oh my, it's you…"
Ace shot her a smile, and pressed the little spy camera to a device on his wrist. The files she'd recorded transferred in a flash.
"Nothing against the press," he said, noting the gala press pass she wore on a string around her neck. "But for now, for this moment, let's allow them their privacy, what?"
He handed her camera pen back to her, and she realized—
"You left my recordings of – oop!"
"The recordings you took while hiding in that air shaft?" Ace said. "Those are yours to do with as you wish. I do have one request, however."
"Anything," she said, quite unable to stop staring up at him.
"Wait," he said. "Hold off on your report until you've learned the full story."
"Will you be the one to tell that story? Ace?" she asked, rather breathlessly.
"Not me," he said. "I'm just a visitor. But, ask around. Get as many perspectives as you can. There's more to this story than Frank, Metzeler, and my mother. More to it, even, than those miners. Remember, old bean, someone somewhere funded all this misery. Someone somewhere approved it."
"Smeg, you're right," she said. "There are depths here. Money, scandal, corruption, personal intrigue! Oh, Ace, it's the scoop I've always wanted."
"Then, I entrust it to you," he said. "Let the people of this system know the truth."
He winked at her and strode away, back in the direction of the parking dome where Starbug waited. Alynna watched him go, then sighed, pressing a hand to her thundering heart.
"What a guy," she said.
Alynna's report crashed like a wave over the Space Corps, the Inner System, and the entire Outer Rim. Metzeler took a hard fall, as did several eugenics-minded engineers in the Space Corps R&D department. On Earth, especially, political leaders denounced the 'misuse' of public funds, as they put it - particularly Earth taxes - to fund such a 'reckless' and 'damaging' project. As indictments and trials glued the scandalized public to their vid-screens, a host of charities and crowd-funding organizations mobilized to aid the suffering GELFs...many of whom wanted no part of it. Top scientists went to work on a treatment, to try to reverse the genetic damage wrought by the GESS Project's experimental serum, but they found few volunteers among the miners of the Kuiper Belt. Their outward-looking philosophy put little stake in looking back on a path they had already trod. They preferred to look forward, some even arguing that the GELF transformation was part of a greater design, to keep them moving away from their past and toward a greater future, out beyond the solar system.
Admiral Rimmer used her pull, influence, and talent for blackmail to maintain the prestige of her Family Name. She cut a deal to reveal all she knew in return for a guarantee of anonymity, helping to bring down a hidden, dedicated conspiracy to engineer 'superior' species of humans and part-human cyborgs that spread farther and deeper than many could have imagined. And if, in the process of turning the Project's documents over to the investigation, a few of the files, formulae and schematics were somehow...misplaced... Well, who would ever be the wiser?
Alynna did try to find Ace Rimmer after her story broke. She employed every resource of her new nightly news team to track down even the most tenuous lead. But, her strange hero was long gone by then - off with his friends in another time and, surely, on another adventure.
The End
This is the end of the story, but there's an epilogue currently in the works. Please stay tuned! :D
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