Chapter Seven – Memories of Future Past
"… And get a move on!" Screeched Blight at the retreating form of the American boy.
Wheeler sighed and pressed the door release to her bedroom, looking around for the object the doctor had sent him to fetch, while trying not to pay too close attention to the disarranged bed and the clothes scattered around the floor.
"She didn't say there'd be so much junk in here," he muttered to himself, picking up a couple of the objects on her dressing table and eyeing them doubtfully. The strange mix of cosmetics and mechanical devices strewn over its surface made him wonder how she ever found anything.
Picking up a likely looking doohickey, the young boy was distracted by a brightly coloured book hidden underneath. It was titled, 'Saving Our Planet' with a smaller sub-title, 'The unofficial biography'. There was a picture underneath of four teenagers and a monkey but something about it was odd. After staring at it for several moments Wheeler realised what it was. The picture was off centre and the beautiful blond on the edge of the group was looking away from them, smiling at something which was presumably out of the picture.
Who'd have them pose like that? He wondered. It looks like there's something missing!
The other thing that bothered him about the photograph was that the lovely girl staring off into space reminded him forcibly of Linka… it couldn't have been her of course, this girl was several years older. Maybe they're related… I'll have to show her. If she can be bothered to talk to me again, that is! That his Russian friend was not talking to him was more disturbing to his peace of mind than he liked and he didn't really understand why.
Opening the book at random and flicking through it until he found another picture of the young woman, Jason began to frown as he read:
[An orphan by the age of fourteen, Linka was always an independent young girl and having completed her schooling less than two years later, taking her place amongst such a talented team was simply the next logical step.]
The American wrinkled up his nose in confusion, and flicked back a few pages to the beginning of the section where 'Alina Orlova' was printed in large capitals. They have the same name? That's weird… and just a bit creepy. He turned the page once more and his eye caught the mention of Alina's father.
[… Mr Orlova, who tragically lost his life in a mining accident in the summer of 1987…]
"Are you shitting me?" he exclaimed involuntarily, "That's four years from now!"
"Wheeler!" The shrill voice made Wheeler jump guiltily and his heart pounded in his chest, but the polluter was still in another part of the ship. "Haven't you found my inverse neutron flow polariser yet?"
He closed the biography and moved a couple of things on top of it – not wanting her to know that he'd been reading it – before hurrying out of the room clutching the piece of tech he hoped was the right one. "Coming!"
Wheeler didn't know what to make of the strange book, or if it really was related to his friend, but he decided that until he'd worked that out, he wouldn't say anything about it.
"What's for dinner?" Wheeler asked as he entered their small kitchen and made his way over to the counter where various take out boxes had been left for them.
Sitting at the table with Kwame, going over the written English alphabet with her new friend, Linka ignored him.
"What's in these?" The American tried again, "It's all in Chinese or something."
Again Linka refused to acknowledge him but feeling awkward Kwame said, "We do not know, Mr Plunder brought it for us."
"I wasn't asking you." Wheeler replied sulkily, looking dubiously inside one carton and then another, "She always knows what's in this stuff."
"Who is she? The cat's mother?" Linka snapped, using a phase that her Grandmother had often used to correct her manners, though she wasn't entirely sure that she had translated it correctly.
The red-head glowered at her, his temper flaring as it always did when they were at odds. "No, just a stuck up little geek who wants to go back to having no friends."
Kwame began to protest but Linka hushed him, though she looked upset. "I told you he is always like this when Mr Plunder is around, ignore him." She wrote 'Kwame' on the paper in front of her, "Try that."
Jason chose a box at random and another that contained rice and came over to join them at the table. Annoyed at not having Linka's attention, even angry attention, he sneered and said, "He can't even write his own name? What is he, a bit thick?"
The Russian gave him a death glare, "He cannot write in English, he can write it in his own language, and even if he could not that would not mean he was stupid. Kwame is our friend, why are you being so mean? There are lots of things you do not know!"
"Why are you defending him?" He shot back as if Kwame wasn't there, "Do you enjoy being Little Miss Teacher or something? You like having someone around that has to look up to you? Maybe he'll fall for it, but not me! And what was all that 'I'll look after him Mr Plunder' stuff earlier? You get on my case for wanting to do a good job for someone who's been good to me and then you get all sickeningly sweet around him? You're not just a nerd, you're a two faced, ungrateful, boring Brain!"
This was too much for Linka, she stood with tears streaming down her face and ran for the door.
Jason pushed his dinner away with a huff, feeling guilty for upsetting her but not yet ready to admit that he was wrong. He'd expected her to yell back as she usually did but he'd gone too far.
"You do not deserve her friendship," The African boy said quietly, rising as if to go after her.
"Where are you going?" Jason asked, alarmed.
Kwame continued to speak calmly but the other boy could tell that he was annoyed from the look in his eyes, "I am going to comfort her. Linka is my friend, that is how you behave towards friends. With kindness."
"You stay away from her!" The young American couldn't have explained what he was feeling just then but he knew he wasn't going to let Kwame make up for his behaviour. "I'll talk to her… just… stay out of it!"
He ran off after Linka and the older boy shook his head with a sigh, returning to his studies. I will check on her later. He promised silently.
While the African boy sympathised with Linka, he had already begun to feel that there must have been some sort of misunderstanding, possibly exacerbated by their red headed friend. He was determined to help her feel that she belonged there so that they could all move forward together.
Despite the bickering of his new colleagues, Kwame was learning a lot. Mal had been able to give him details of their operations in a language he could read and he felt that he would be able to make a real contribution to progress, perhaps even improve the conditions in his own country as well as help support his family.
Jason stood awkwardly in the doorway of Alina's room. She was curled up on the bed with her back to the door but he could tell that she was still crying.
Stepping through and making sure the door was closed, the young boy tried to make his apology. "Linka? Uh... I… um… I'm sorry."
She became quieter and though she didn't turn over, he knew she was listening. "I didn't mean it… any of it. You know that, right?"
"Then why did you say it?" She whispered, her voice still choked from her tears.
"Because…" He swallowed, "You were ignoring me…"
Linka turned over and sat up, "I do not understand."
Wheeler struggled with himself and then blurted out, "Why do you want to spend so much time with Kwame? You're my friend, not his!"
An adorable smile peeped through her tear stained face. "I can be both."
"We don't need anyone else." He replied becoming sulky again and making her smile even wider.
"Maybe, but it is nice to have more friends." She told him, but seeing the set of his jaw she added, "You will always be my best friend though."
Wheeler looked at her somewhat dubiously, "Better than Mal?"
She nodded and he couldn't stop his smug grin from returning.
"Durak." The Russian said softly, knowing that he knew what it meant by now. The look in her eyes matched her smile.
Giving a soft laugh at her teasing, Wheeler shrugged, "We ok?"
She nodded again and scrubbed her face dry with her hands before going to stand beside him but the silence that had fallen felt awkward so she broke it with, "Did you like the camel's hump?"
"Huh?" he blinked.
"What you were eating in the box." She giggled as he turned green and ran for the bathroom.
Mrs Minkovski led the Planeteers and Linka's worried parent into the computer lab saying apologetically, "I can only give you half an hour I am afraid, Mr Vasilyevykh has a class scheduled."
"It will not take long," Linka assured her, moving unerringly to the one terminal that the missing girl favoured over all the others.
"We want to do everything we can to help of course. Such a lovely, quiet little girl, and so intelligent... we are all very concerned for her," the teacher continued to assure Mr Orlov, but his attention was on the lovely blond, his brow slightly furrowed.
Excusing himself and leaving Kwame to entertain the woman, he moved to Linka's side and asked, "What is it that you are looking for?"
The colour in the young woman's cheeks deepened but she felt too much in her father's presence to begin to process it so, as usual, she clamped down on her feelings, "I do not know… a clue to what she was thinking perhaps. Anything."
He nodded, "I am grateful that you are trying… I do not think I caught your name?"
Linka bit her bottom lip, her father was watching her intently, but she was saved from answering by the others coming to join them.
"Find anything?" Gi asked hopefully.
The Russian laughed softly, "It is still booting up. They are so old, I am not sure I remember how to get around them."
"Old?" Mrs Minkovski exclaimed indignantly, "They have just been upgraded, I assure you they are quite advanced!"
Swallowing hard, Linka murmured a polite apology and entered her log in details, once more ignoring the teacher's startled exclamation and refusing to meet her father's eyes. After searching the file system for several minutes without finding anything, she finally brought up the last program her younger self had run, though she had no expectations of it being any help.
"She was playing chess," The Wind Planeteer said with a sigh, "Nothing unusual at all."
"That is the date she disappeared." Her father put in, becoming a little choked as he saw her name against it on the scoreboard.
It was the other name that made Ma-Ti gasp however, and as the others looked at him he pointed hurriedly to the screen, "Her opponent, look at who she was playing!"
Three voices exclaimed at once, "Mal!"
"You know this person?" Mr Orlov asked anxiously?
Kwame nodded, "Yes, and where Mal is, you can bet Dr Blight is not far behind."
"Can I connect this to… to a modem?" Linka asked her ex-teacher, "I might be able to trace their activities."
The older woman looked at her blankly, and switched to her own language thinking she had misunderstood, "I'm sorry, what was it you wanted?"
"But who are they?" Linka's father persisted, not listening to the conversation that was going on in the background. "Will this Doctor of yours hurt my little girl? Why would she take my Alina?"
The Planeteers exchanged glances but it was Kwame who answered, "Dr Blight is a very brilliant scientist… Some of her practices are a little questionable, but I do not believe she would take Linka to hurt her. Especially as it seems that she has taken Wheeler too, she must have something else in mind."
"What?" The older man persisted but Kwame shook his head and confessed that he didn't know.
"There is nothing more I can do here…" Linka told them sadly, "The internet is still in its infancy and I would have to get into one of the connected organisations to get the information we need… and we do not even know if it is there."
Gi frowned, "Then what do we do? We don't know where she'll strike next."
"We can guess that it will be one of three places." Kwame observed dryly.
Linka walked silently behind the others as they made their way back to the geo-cruiser. Kwame was explaining their role as Planeteers to her father but she was not listening. She just wanted to fix the older man in her memory, and sharpen the image that had begun to fade. He wasn't the invincible giant she remembered, but his features were kind, his voice comforting and his overall presence was that of a strong man with a lot to bear.
"My daughter must be so afraid, she was not meant for adventure." Mr Orlov was saying.
Gi glanced back over her shoulder, "She might surprise you, don't underestimate her."
Linka blushed.
"From everything we have learned," Ma-Ti said reassuringly, "I think it is safe to assume that she is with Wheeler, and he will protect her."
"Is he not too, a child?" The older man asked.
Kwame smiled, "Yes, but it is in his nature to…"
They all froze, staring at the spot their friend had been inhabiting until that moment, until Linka's father broke the silence, his voice raised in anger and fear, "I want to know what is going on here, and I do not want any more lies!"