The Rescue (Alternate Dimensions Book 3) Read online

  The Rescue

  The Missing Queen (Bonus)

  The Ripple Effect (Bonus)

  The Lost Tiro (Bonus)

  The Plague (Preview)

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  The Rescue

  Alternate Dimensions Book 3

  Blake B. Rivers

  Copyright © 2017 by Blake B. Rivers. This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  Chapter One: Virulent recollections

  “Gee-Gee, what's a hollow pat?”

  A small girl looked up at me, large eyes smiling at the corners when our gazes met. “A what?”

  “A hallow pat? The thingie you sometimes watch TV on.”

  “What's TV?”

  “That thing you see me watching the flashing pictures on sometimes.”

  “Oh! We call them a Sims. Like simulation. And I watch them on my holopad. It's a machine that projects light into either a flat or 3d scape. We use them for our entertainment as well as other media digestion.”

  “Wow, you know so many big words. How do you do that?”

  The little alien seemed to think. “I suppose it’s because I read a lot.”

  “And why do you read?” I rolled onto my back, making my toy airplane soar over my head in loops. I didn't really understand my strange friend, other than that she was from space, but I liked the way she explained things to me. She made the world make sense.

  “Because I want to learn.”

  “Why? Learning is for school?”

  “I do not think that at all.” She answered, fiddling with some very shiny looking techno-thing that looked like a cross between a smart phone and taser. “There is always something new I want to learn.”

  Huh, someone she sounded excited enough that I felt my own mood rise to match hers. “Like what?”

  “Anything. Everything. Why is it our planets align themselves in the way they do. Why do people work at jobs they hate for an arbitrary system of reward? Why are you and I able to talk but no one can see us? I want to know how everything works, because then maybe I'll understand why...”

  “Why what?”

  “Why we're here. What's the purpose of all this. Of life itself?”

  “Wow. I never thought of all that.”

  “I know. You wouldn't be you if you did.”

  “What, are you calling me stupid?”

  She looked surprised. “What? No! It's just... hmmm...” She paused to think, and I rolled back onto my stomach to regard her. I knew Gee-Gee took her words very seriously, so her stopping to think must mean that something very important was going to come out of her mouth. “Here on my planet, we have this idea that many things are mirrors of each other. Like the reflection of your face upon the water. Opposite, but equally important to each other. You're my mirror, Andi. I'm here to think, and search, and question, and you are here to bring happiness and adventures and fun.”

  I laughed at that. “I think I got the better half of the coin then.”

  “Of course, we both do. That's how perfect mirrors work.”

  “Hah, well don't let me crack then. That's seven years bad luck.”

  “Never. You've helped me through school, the least I can do is make sure you stay in one place.”

  “I'm so lucky that I know you, Gee-Gee.”

  “I feel the same. You're my best friend, and I intend for it to stay that way.”

  I leaned over and heaved again.

  “Whoa, whoa. Someone get her some water.”

  I looked around blearily. I was in the medbay of Angel's ship.

  Again.

  They were going to start charging me frequent flier miles if I kept this up.

  A straw was pressed to my lips, and I took a deep drink. I tried to steady my breathing and lock my mind to this reality, but my brain was still throbbing from the procedure. The promenade of memories I had digested were still marching across my mind, some of them replaying themselves, some of them emerging anew.

  But one thing was clear, I had known Jyra. Not only had I known her, she had been my best friend. We had spent hours upon hours together, and helped each other through incredibly difficult times. How had I forgotten her?

  The sound of metal hitting flesh, a shadow looming over me and more screaming. Gee-Gee standing below my, crying and begging me to be okay.

  Slipping into nothingness for a very long while.

  Oh right. That had happened. Tears rose to my eyes as the time I last saw my Gee-Gee played again. That was the night my mother had rushed me to the hospital despite my step-father's adamant orders, and I had been removed from their custody. I had been in a coma for several days while my brain stopped swelling, and had had several seizures.

  Upon coming out of it, I had lost a lot of memories as well as fine motor functions. I remembered going to rehabilitative therapy, and getting about one million tests done. I had been a ward of the state for about two years through this whole process, before a cousin stepped up to take me in.

  “What's going on?” Janix asked, his tri-fingered hand squeezing mine. “Bajol's going crazy running tests, but it's all coming up that nothing's wrong with me.”

  I wanted to tell him what was going on, to explain to him that I wasn't dying or plagued with some lethal backfire of the machine, but just that I reeling from the devastation of finding out that I had a best friend, but had utterly lost her for years.

  “She and Jyra used to know each other,” Angel supplied, surprisingly calm given the situation. My head snapped to her and just enough of the deluge of memories cleared for me to be suspicious. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Jyra told us that when we first met. She said you and her had visited each other all the time in her childhood, but she had suddenly forgotten about you when you were erased into whiteness, as she said.”

  “What? Why wouldn't you tell me?”

  “Because we didn't know how. We only had secondhand information Jyra had given once and no proof. She stated that some traumatic event that broke your tie had made her forget about you. Once she remembered, she was hell bent on creating that machine and finding you.

  “So, we tried everything to find you, but it was like you didn't even exists. Strangers across the dimensions threw out their nets, scouring entire continents, but we came up with nothing. Then, when you suddenly landed in our laps, able to somewhat communicate but not quite interact, we realized just how serious your injury was. There was quite a heated debate, but in the end we decided we couldn't risk your health or your loyalty by trying to make you believe something we couldn't prove.”

  “I understand you reasoning, but I'm going to go with that's still super shitty of you.”

  “Yeah, I'm starting to think that now.”

  “So you're saying that this woman we've been chasing all over the galaxy is someone you used to chill with?”

  “Don't exaggerate,” Viys'k cut in. “We've spent at least half of our time running for our lives from bad decisions we've made.”

  “True. Never been much of a marathon runner, but I'm thinking of starting. I've certainly put in enough practice lately.”

  “I went to my therapist today, Gee-Gee.”

  “Oh really, what did they say?”

 
“That perhaps I've created this imaginary friend to feed a deep seeded need I have for attention and companionship that I'm not able to get from my peers.”

  “And interesting hypothesis, and one that might have merit if it weren't for the fact that you were real.”

  “I know, it's wild, right? But I wrote down all his words I didn't know, and I've spent most of tonight looking for them. But...”

  “But what?”

  Little me blushed, feeling silly. Jyra was a genius, surely she would realize I was just a dumb kid and stop hanging out with me. “I'm not a very good speller, so some of the words I wasn't able to look up.”

  “You are correct, that is a difficulty when trying to learn new words; how can you find them in the dictionary if they are completely foreign. I would be glad to help, if I know them.”

  “Thanks. You're the best, Gee-Gee.”

  “I don't know if I agree with that, but it pleases me that you think as much.”

  “Of course, I love my Gee-Gee.”

  There was a pause, then the strange girl looked over to me and beamed, her eyes closed so she wouldn't have to look into mine. “I love you too, Andi.”

  Oh boy. Another wave of nausea slammed into me and I leaned over the bed yet again. Every recalled scene caused a spiral of euphoria to roll through me -ephemeral happiness at being united with a half of me that I hadn't even known I had lost- only to be followed quickly by heartbreak and pain as I remembered what slipped through my fingers.

  “The symptoms will alleviate as she assimilates the rest of the memories into the appropriate spots of her mental timeline.”

  Bajol stepped out from his lab area, looking frazzled. “This kind of trauma cannot be good for any of her body, let alone her nervous system.”

  Angel made a frustrated looking gesture. “I don't know what you want me to do. I didn't know the hologram was going to tell her to get into some unlicensed machine or that it would have this effect on her. I've been in one of those myself, and all I got was a mild headache.”

  “But you knew about her and Jyra! How could you hide that from her?”

  “I was under orders, okay? Believe it or not, there are a lot of Strangers who’ve been around a heck of a lot longer than me. When we took a vote, the majority sided with them.”

  “It’s fine,” I hissed between clenched teeth. Anger was rushing through me, making all of my limbs heat. I had been so unconcerned about Jyra when I had first arrived here. Her kidnapping was only important because it was an obstacle in my path to get home. She had just been some plot point in my story that didn’t matter much.

  But now… now my mind was whipping itself up into a fit. Was she alright? Was she hurt that I didn’t remember her? Had they killed her? Would they? The need to save her shot into the forefront of everything else, only for me to bitterly realize that we had absolutely zero idea where she was.

  So, I looked to the aliens surrounding me, hoping my ardent need was written across my face in ways my words could not communicate. “How do we find her?”

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and my inner tension skyrocketed. We couldn’t be at a dead end. We couldn’t.

  “I have an idea, actually.” Janix said. “But it’s gonna take some work.”

  “Anything. Spit it out, please.”

  “Well, first things first is we gotta figure out a way to stop that cloud from tracking you. I’m thinking we can piggyback on this Gee-gee’s idea about subspace frequencies maybe? And then… well I figure we need to go right to where this all started.” I tilted my head, not sure of exactly which origin point he was referring to. “The labs where they created the virus. Which I think we’ll find, with a little digging, that they’re probably the same labs working towards a cure.”

  “You want to break into the most heavily guarded, vitally important laboratory in all of the entire galaxy?” Zikky asked incredulously.

  “Yup. I think that’ll about do it. I can’t imagine a better place to hide a hostage or secrets on how to find said hostage than there.”

  I saw several others look like they want to argue, and a couple even start a sentence only to peter out as they realized the logic behind his statement. It seemed the muscled alien was good for more than just his looks and skills with a gun.

  “Well…” Angel said slowly, “I guess we need to start thinking of a plan.”

  “I’ll continue going through the rest of Jyra’s data to see if I can formulate some sort of interference with the subspace frequencies, but I’ll need readings from Andi.” Bajol offered.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” I said, settling back into the medbay bed. “I’m stuck here until the world stops blinking out in little nostalgia chunks.”

  “Right, of course. I’ll get right one that.”

  “Alright then, I think we’re good here for a bit then.”

  “Great,” Viys’k grumbled. “We survive one suicide mission just to bounce right into another. I can’t wait to hear the odds on this one.”

  “That’s the thing about being a Stranger,” Angel said as she exited. “You can win one round, but you have to keep stepping up to the gamble until you lose.”

  Chapter Two: Jumping the Tracks

  I sank down, down, down into darkness. But I didn’t panic. This nothingness had a certain sort of familiarity to it.

  I stopped sinking, and my body slowly righted myself, until I was standing on a flat plane of blackness, surrounded by people I had never met. But I didn’t panic. Although I couldn’t recognize the faces of the group surrounding me, the energy coming off of them was distinctly recognizable.

  “Hello, Verdandi.” One murmured, a tall, lanky man who looked like he possibly could have been from earth.

  “Hello, Strangers.” I murmured.

  It was strange to speak to them, I hadn’t heard their voices or felt their presence in weeks. And now that I was able to physically see them, there was an added layer of surreal to it all.

  “I believe we owe you an apology.”

  “That’s about the mildest you could put it,” I answered, arms crossed.

  They shifted uncomfortably, and I looked around at their faces. I took in some guilty expressions, some concerned, and some carefully blank. In the back I glimpsed Angel, her face clouded with a mild anger that I guessed was directed at her companions.

  “We apologize. You see, after meeting Jyra, we were somewhat skeptical of her perception. No Strangers have ever been able to directly connect to each other across dimensions outside of the Meeting Place. And the fact that she had locked off her mind from us for years, and none of us could connect with you… it made the entire situation hard to build a plan on.

  “So, when somehow Jyra succeeded, and you popping into our dimension against all the rules, we were floored. Not too long after, we could suddenly feel you again. Your energy was small, and reedy but it was there. We reached out to you, but not before it found you.

  “We scrambled to figure out what to do, which road was the best to take, but before we could do a thing, you beat our enemy back. We all stood here, shocked by a newborn being able to do what none of us ever could. And so we decided to let you take your own path as you saw fit. No interference. No influence. It was clear that your unorthodox approach was somehow allowing you to circumvent all the rules we’ve been playing by for eons.”

  “So that’s it? Your hands off approach is why you chose to keep the memory of my best friend away from me? That makes no sense! Telling me about Jyra could have only motivated me more!”

  “We’re sorry. We realize we made a mistake. We… made a compromise by issuing Angel to find you. That was… obviously not enough. We hope that now we can move forward together all on the same page.”

  “I want to tell you to go screw yourself, but honestly I don’t have time for that.” I felt angry tears prick at my eyes. “Look, I’m not just satisfied with beating this Great Choice. Like you’ve all said, they’re coming more often, and f
aster than ever. I want to defeat this giant douchebag of a cloud once and for all and get my best friend and my life back!”

  “You don’t think we’ve been trying to do that for ages? It’s formless. You can’t shoot it. You can’t harm it. You can only beat it at its own game.”

  “See, that where you and I disagree. I’ve swallowed him whole. I digested that sonofabitch and now I spit out bits of him that I don’t like. So you all can either help us formulate a plan, or you can keep on hiding here in this place, waiting for him to sweep into your reality and roll the dice on your survival.”

  Several of them sputtered, but Angel’s laugh could be heard throughout the expanse. “I told you, she’s worse than I was. I don’t know about all of you, but I vote we stop playing it reactionary and start going on the offensive.”

  “Of course, you would.” Another retorted.

  Angel shrugged, walking to the center of the meeting with me. “Look, you may all not want to admit it, but we’re dying out. We’re losing. We can win a thousand battles -and we pretty much have- but it only takes one loss to wipe out several of us. Eventually, we’re going to go extinct unless we figure something out.”

  The quiet murmur of objection that rolled through the crowd turned to outright shouting and soon the Strangers were embroiled in a full on screaming match/debate. Angel just turned to me with a sigh, and gripped my hand.