Chapter 2: first impressions

See previous chapter.

Holly Martin surfaced – that was the best way of phrasing it, really. She surfaced from the world of darkness that she was cast into by Jack Carter, of all people, into a world of rainbows and light, into reality...

Or was it the reality? Not so long ago the answer would have been an unshakeable yes, but lately, especially after her demise by Jack Carter, Holly was not so sure.

Slowly, Holly shifted, trying to become more aware of her surroundings. Right now, these surroundings consisted of an interior of a car, in which Holly was lying – on the back seat of a big van, to be more precise.

"That's new," Holly muttered, trying to sound sceptical, and froze: her voice sounded wrong, all scratchy as if it wasn't used for a long period of time, which didn't make any sense.

"Where am I?" Holly tried again, shifting her position in the seat – and then the pain hit.

Well, it wasn't exactly pain in its classical form – more like 1000 pins and needles, times a 1000, plus some sort of an overall body fatigue made Holly feel very uncomfortable – not hurt, more like uncomfortable.

"What's going on?" Holly repeated her question, when she saw her reflection in one of the car's rear-view mirrors.

Holly was never big-boned, or husky, or voluptuous, but neither had seen been particularly skinny – until now. Now she was skinny, and rather pale-skinned, and shorthaired – something that she never had been.

"Now this is getting worrisome," Holly confessed, when the person in the front seat of the car awoke... and the situation became even more worrisome.

/

The fight was coming to an end. The wolf (which had attacked first, really), managed to inflict several good bites upon Beverly, but the cougar's claws proved to be the decisive weapon in this battle: Beverly had flung the wolf away... but now the rest of its pack was coming upon her, their howls forewarning of their arrival.

"Now this is getting worrisome!" a somewhat feminine voice boomed next to Beverly's feline ears, and the cougar...

...woke up.

"I'm Beverly, I'm Beverly, not a mountain lion," the psychologist muttered to herself, desperately trying to anchor herself in her reality, when she noticed someone else.

"Yes, and I'm Holly," said Holly Marten, clearly unimpressed by Beverly's first impression upon her.

"I know," Beverly said curtly, not really concerned about such niceties. "I know. I'm Beverly."

"I know, I heard you," Holly nodded in reply, not really sure if she should be polite to a woman who was seriously suspecting that she was a mountain lion.

There was a pause as both women waited for each other to break the ice first. Holly was the more talkative of the two, so she folded first. "Are you real?" she finally asked, deciding to grasp the bull by its horns (or rather, a cobra by its hood, to be more accurate). "This isn't a computer stimulation, and you aren't going to kill me for figuring this out, are you?"

"No. I'm not senator Wen," Beverly said curtly.

Holly blinked. "What's senator Wen got to do with it?"

"She was the one who killed you for figuring this out."

"Then I'm dead?" Holly blinked and looked around the van – it was a big van. Then she looked at her interlocutrix, whose dishevelled hair and red-rimmed eyes made her look just as bad as Holly's own dishevelled appearance.

"No," Beverly said curtly. "You're alive."

"Good," Holly nodded, before hesitating and looking at her arm, formerly marked (or not) by the imaginary (or not) dragon. There were no marks anymore, but the arm itself was different: much paler and skinnier than before Astraeus took flight. And actually, there was a mark, only one that Holly failed to notice before: a puncture mark similar to that made by an IV machine... or a big syringe.

"You know," Holly spoke after looking at the puncture mark, "there is another explanation – maybe I'm on a bad trip – acid trip. Hey, maybe that is it! I never came to Eureka, or met Douglas, or participated in the Astraeus project, but instead had some sort of a crazy mental breakdown and am currently in a cross-America trip like some sort of a mad hippie!"

"Believe whatever you want," Beverly said, not really caring about Dr. Marten's opinions, "but we are going to Eureka, because that's the best place for us to be."

"Okay!" Holly said brightly. "I always wanted to see Eureka in person, and now that I saw it during the acid trip, I want to see it even more. Because if that wasn't an acid trip and Jack Carter really did kill me-"

"Senator Wen," Beverly interrupted the other woman before she could help herself.

"No, it was Sheriff Carter," Holly said firmly, but Beverly already figured out her next move:

"Look, you are already entertaining the possibilities that nothing that has happened to you for the last few months was real – does it matter so much as to who has killed you, precisely?" she asked the younger woman.

Holly Marten was a genius, and a saner genius than Beverly Barlowe was. However, her area of specialization was astrophysics, not psychology; distant stars and planets, not the human brain; plus a long period of being trapped in a VR world never helped anyone and she still wanted to consider Jack Carter her friend.

"Good point," she agreed after some thinking. "Let's get going to Eureka, then! I cannot wait to see it for the first time!"

Beverly's facial features remained impasse. To that this was not going according to plan would be a lie, because she simply did not make any plans other than some very simple ones, for a change. After all, her last complex plan left her probably crazy, so a change in her approach to plotting was in order. No, the plans were not the problem – Holly Marten was. The younger woman was simply annoying up close and personal – if she were to pay Beverly for company it would be one thing; but for free (and due to some personal ethnics), well...

...And then the patrol officer came over to them, and things became even more annoying.

TBC