COF Chapter 7-2
2
--””--
Melissa had to admit this golden cage, as Aoife put it, was more luxurious and amazing than anything she knew. While she was a hands on, practical kind of girl that could equally well brand a calf, fix a fence, tame a bronc as well as she could fry chickin’, bake an apple pie, sew a dress or do all those traditional women’s household chores; she was the daughter of a billionaire.
Her father, a former marine and oil rig worker, inherited the oil and Energy Corporation of his father, never had much time or patience for all those uber lux trappings other billionaires seemed to need to make themselves feel special; was the reason she had her head screwed on the right way. Melissa went to the finest college, was a valedictorian student and was neither ignorant to unaware of the finest luxury money could buy.
She stood by the floor to ceiling window and overlooked the breath taking vista of an alien mega city that made New York City look like a village. The local star was very much like the sun at least as far as she could tell. It was currently a bright orange ball hovering low on the horizon and between two gigantic, into the stratosphere reaching tower buildings. One shaped like the Washington monument obelisk and the other like the staff of a priest with the looped cross called the Ankh on its top.
The sun bathed everything in golden light and produced long shadows. Yet despite this magnificent view, her eyes looked beyond and her mind conjured images of wide open land, the inviting ranch house. Mother waving from the porch. She crossed her arms and sighed deeply.
She wanted to turn and explore her new digs, when she noticed a black dot coming directly at her.
There was much flying traffic out there, but the dot that caught her attention grew bigger and it had wings! It was a bird of sorts. A bird with a rider!
For a brief moment she remembered Aaron’s remark about Flash Gordon and wondered if it was her own imagination playing tricks, but the bird was nothing like any animal of Earth, it was huge and powerful enough to carry a man with a spear.
Fascinated by it she remained by the window, the rider was now close enough for her to make out details of his outfit, a golden or brass like helmet, that partially covered his face like the mask of an ancient Greek warrior. He lowered the spear like weapon aiming it at her.
She realized she was about to be shot at
Then everything happened at once, she threw herself on the floor in the very last moment evading the blast, while something hit the window and broke the entire pane.
She was showered with shards of glass or whatever they called this transparent material, there was the ear shattering screech of a huge bird of prey, the rushing flapping of enormous wings.
She rolled away from the seemingly endless abyss, the torrent like wind trying to suck her over the ledge and evaded the sharp beak of the raptor.
The man and the bird were here to kill her for some reason!
The muscular man still sitting on the bird aimed the spear again, it was obvious some sort of fire arm, but his second shot also missed, and Sigurd had entered the room and threw a pillow of all things. His action however distracted the assassin long enough for Melissa complete another roll and escape the weapon beam that cooked a sizeable fraction of the carpet and the floor beneath into a bubbling glowing mass of liquid metal.
The rider yelled something she could not understand, Sigurd without hesitation had lunged forward wrapped his muscular arms around the long neck of the angry, agitated bird snapping at Melissa.
The rider tried to regain his aim and balance at the suddenly struggling bird. Melissa was certain she would have been dead if the idiot on the bird would have used a gun, instead of wielding a lance like blaster. She did not hesitate either and grabbed a fragile looking chair and hammered it across the birds head.
The big animal went completely wild, tossing and screeching. The rider was hammered head first in the ceiling by the bucking bird. Sigurd, with all his strength seemed not to have any effect on the bird, but he did not let go either. Melissa completely ignoring her fears and instincts to somehow flee, tossed herself between flapping wings and stomping needle sharp claws, retrieved the spear like weapon, that the man had dropped as he was smacked into the ceiling by his revolting, screeching feather covered ride,
She heard Sigurd yell something in his own language. She turned evaded another stomping claw, and saw his face distorted by him giving all he had. There was a sharp cracking sound, and the entire bird went limb and collapsed. Melissa not wasting the opportunity, aimed the alien weapon found the trigger mechanism and fired a bright bolt of energy, burning most of the rider to ashes.
Sigurd trying to catch his breath, exhausted to his limits let go of the now limp neck. “Did you order room service or why is there a giant chicken in your room?”
She also tried to catch her breath and get her bearings.as men and women in uniforms and drawn weapons stormed in.
--””--
To Aoife, everything was too big and too bombastic. She preferred smaller things in everything. She did like the Saran food however and especially one particular fish dish. It featured a boiled, not fried piece of fish. Served with a creamy yellowish sauce and an also boiled grain that tasted somewhat like wheat. The food could be ordered at any time either telling it to one of the servants or using a touch screen menu that could be found almost everywhere.
The thirty teenagers shared as it appeared an entire floor of this luxury hotel. Everyone had their own spacious rooms, there were large common rooms with entertainment options, a futuristic but recognizable gym and a sizeable swimming pool. The only access to the floor were two elevators, or something similar and they did not work or open for the teenagers.
There were dozens of servants who seemed to understand them and their wishes, but always smiled and shrugged their shoulders when asked about something.
Aoife had used the swimming pool and was wearing a bathing suit and dripping wet looking for a bath room.
It was there when she noticed a rectangular crack in one of the otherwise smooth metal walls. More out of curiosity she approached it and pressed against it. It was, as she assumed a hidden door, because something clicked like a lock and she could almost see the latch mechanism.
She always had this to her perfectly normal ability to just somehow and almost see the inner workings of machines, mechanisms and such.
The door slid open and she found a technical room behind it, something with pipes and pumps. Blinking lights and dials. Obviously some system that filtered or conditioned the pool water. There was also a shelf with tools and another door.
Sure enough, the elevators weren’t the only way to come and go. She found another, one she was sure, their friendly captors did not want them to know about.
This door easily opened as well and revealed a stair well leading up and down.
Aoife, with a towel around her neck. Barefoot and still wet, in nothing more than a bathing suit, gave in to her own curiosity and sneaked down the stairs. Two flights of stairs down there was an identical door to the one above leading into the pool maintenance room.
She opened it just a little and peeked through the gap. She looked into a wide carpeted corridor with doors in regular intervals. It could have been the corridor of any luxury hotel on Earth. This somehow raised the idea in her that, all she had seen and experienced so far was perhaps just a very elaborate and real dream. Perhaps just like in the movie Matrix, some sort of elaborate computer simulation. Her mind spun, fueled by the hopes that her far-fetched theories proved to be right, that all she had to do was find a public phone or a computer hooked up to the Internet. She sighed at her own thoughts but then silently thought: “Farfetched maybe, but not more so than being abducted by aliens that looked exactly like aliens supposed to look like. Rescued by futuristic Space Egyptians and imprisoned in a luxury hotel light years away from Earth.”
She rushed silently on her naked feet and the soft carpet down the wide, wood and brass decorated corridor.
Her heart missed a beat as she almost run into a human sized, almost human shaped machine that came out of a silently opening door right beside her. The machine carried a potted plant and snarled something in a language she did not understand, but it almost sounded like an apology.
The machine then ignored her and rolled around her and down the corridor.
The room looked like a conference room, with a large empty table in the center, a dozen chairs on each side. A huge window on the other side of the room giving a spectacular sight over the futuristic mega city.
Her heart sank, despite her expecting nothing else, her crazy thoughts had raised some hope in her.
There on a hip high credenza, she noticed the black rectangular shape of a Data-Comm and took it. It turned on and she said: “Tronic, where am I?”
It took a second, but then a voice spoke in English. “Language used identified, translation mode now active. You are on the 923th level of the Gukhuthum. This is meeting room Ghaltim and there are no meetings scheduled for today. Do you wish to reserve the room for a meeting?”
“No, not at the moment.”
She heard voices out in the corridor.
The device responded.” ... let us go in there and talk.”
She whispered. “Tronic, shut up!”
She didn’t want to be caught here, somehow she felt it necessary to keep her discovery of a secret exit to herself for now. She looked around and then decided to crawl under the table.
She just had managed to do so as she saw the door open and the legs and feet of two women coming in. In all her predicament she could not stop being a young woman. One of the females that entered the room wore black velvet shoes with golden trim. The shoes looked elegant and comfortable at the same time. Somewhere in her mind she told herself to inquire where shoes liked this could be purchased, not that she had any money or even knew if the Sarans used money.
The two women, spoke in the Saran language and she wished she would understand, when she glanced at the device. Easy to read English text scrolled up in the same speed as the two women talking. The device had shut up and continued translating, well not even Siri could do that.
“ ... we must be careful.”
“Not to worry, this entire section of the Gukhuthum has been blocked from any access, other than by those approved by the court and thus by the queen herself.”
“We are not approved! I don’t want to be tossed into a basin of hungry Amusurth(no English word found).”
“We are here because Kalasiris(no English word found) wants us to help the Blonde Goddess to escape the clutches of the Queen.”
“You are here because of that, not me. I am here because of you but how can I ever resist you?”
The feet of the two females now faced each other, then the one with the black ballerinas wrapped one of her legs around one leg of the one with the rather bland beige slippers. The sounds now reaching Aoife’s ears did not need translation. She was a teenager of a much more open minded society than her parents when they were young, but she still was the product of old fashioned Irish and Catholic morals and her face distorted as if she had bitten in a fresh lemon.
She was certain it was the one with the black ballerinas saying.” ... you are one of the hospitality managers and you should be able to get us to the top floor where the Terrans and the goddess are kept.”
“Yes I think I can, there is a service stairwell at the end of the corridor that connects to the big swim basin of the East side wing. If I understand correctly there is no visible security and no guards. The court did not want the kids to think they are prisoners.”
“Prisoners they are, otherwise they would be allowed to roam freely. The queen and the old hag Tethebea of the Luxor temple are aware who the Blonde goddess really is. She is RA incarnate making both Queen and priestesses obsolete!”
“If she is a goddess, why does she need our help?”
“To test the true believers of course! Kalasiris showed us all the passages in the Book of Gods. The visions of Rameseis are all coming true!”
Even Aoife could detect the fanatical tone in the woman’s voice.
“Then we must do as Kalasiris commands.” The other agreed.
“Can you imagine the rewards a true goddess can bestow upon those who did not fail her trials? Eternal life without the need to die first, powers beyond mortal understanding and in perfect bodies!”
“No I cannot imagine, but we will be together forever and you will be able to please me without hiding.”
“I must return to the others and tell them of your secret way and you must return to your tasks, so you won’t be missed, but after we freed the Goddess we will be part of those who rule and I will have time to please you all the time.”
They embraced and kissed each other once more and left the room.
Aoife was quite certain, Melissa was the one they considered a Goddess. She had heard members of the crew aboard the Samoteth refer to Melissa as Goddess and had it dismissed with an angry feeling of female jealousy as the unfair affectation all blondes seem to earn. Even far from Earth and in space.
But now as she was thinking about it, there were too many incidents where Sarans made these Goddess references to be caused by simple adoration. It appeared this crazy society placed great, apparently religious significance in blonde hair and it seemed the American girl was in danger somehow.
None of the others she considered friends, except perhaps Aaron the boy from New York, he had a way of looking at her lately she liked. Of course she also noticed Yoko the pretty Japanese who also had eyes for that boy. She had not even really talked all that much with any of the others and even less with Melissa. Sure they all had time to introduce themselves and give a brief account of their origin and home countries to each other, but from the beginning she had decided not to like the blonde.
However she was like herself, abducted. She didn’t ask for all this; and whatever differences there might have been between an red headed Catholic girl from Northern Ireland and a blonde Lutheran girl from Texas, USA; they had been erased by the gulf of many light years between this strange place and planet Earth, their home, making them not Italian or American, but Earthers first.
Aoife stopped breathing for a moment as she listened carefully for any sounds, then she crawled from under the table to get back and warn Melissa. Maybe together they could make sense of it all.
--””--
Sofia Pace was from Italy, more precisely she was the daughter of a car mechanic in Libiola. A small village near the Po River, about seventy kilometers from Rome. Her father’s garage was a one man operation, hidden behind a smudgy gate decorated with rusty and sun faded advertisement tins for Champion spark plugs, Pirelli tires and Agip oil.
She was actually glad to be gone, not that she ever imagined to be abducted by aliens from outer space, but she was accused by her own mother to be possessed by a demon and had to endure the beating of a Nun, the patronizing lectures of the local padre and even an exorcism.
All because Sofia could make things happening. Not that she had any idea how she actually did these things, but she refused to believe that there was something evil inside her.
At first she actually believed it, that there was a demon or something evil inside her had that made her feel dirty and unwanted, but she could read the bible and there was no problem going into a church.
All her problems really started when the neighbor lady, always nosy and always on her tiny balcony saw Sofia sitting on the worn out stone stairs to her parents’ home, she was only six or maybe seven back then. According to Donna Paleone, Felix the cat of Sofia was suddenly flying, meowing in distress about the rather unusual situation. That the cat was chased by a rather big dog seconds before was not on the cats or Donna Paleone’s mind.
No one would believe Donna Paleone if she would not have screamed and alerted three other busy bodies with big chests, puffy faces and wobbly arms to their respective windows witnessing the somewhat unnatural act of a cat flying, a dog barking in frustration and a young Sofia laughing in delight apparently directing the cats flight path.
This was the first time the local priest, Mon signore came to the small family home, perched amidst other similar homes, divided by narrow and winding cobblestone streets.
Mon signore Pepone, convinced Sofia played some kind of prank, suggested some stern talking to, a heavy hand and an apology to Donna Paleone.
Sofia sighed as she recalled her child hood and her pious parents taking their religion more serious than their own daughter.
Sofia had learned to hide her gift, and was getting better using it.
She too did not remember much about her abduction. She remembered spending some time in the old peach tree orchard of Don Castillo, a place she liked to go after school, to sit under the shade of the older trees right by the river’s edge and watch the occasional boat going by. Here in this almost forgotten, overgrown orchard she found peace to read and to skip pebbles across the water surface, but not with her hands but with her gift alone.
She did remember the stinging sensation and waking up on an examination table of the terrifying aliens.
She also remembered using her gift smashing a metal tray full of tools into the frightening face and then the sudden jolt.
Now she was here on a different planet than Earth, guests of different aliens who had rescued them from the Gray ones they called Freons.
The Sarans looked like nothing she expected Aliens to look like, they were human in apparently all aspects.
No, she wasn’t’ too upset to be here. On Earth she would have ended up in some lab as scientific curiosity, unless of course her family and the Church managed to kill her first.
She felt a little like Marco Polo, or perhaps the fictional Gulliver traveling to strange new lands. To her this was an adventure.
Sofia had just enjoyed the Saran version of a shower. She was certain she could become a millionaire on Earth if she could bring those horizontal showers back home. She loved the spacious Saran bathrooms, that even on a space ship were bigger than their living room back home, but she truly adored the enormous bathroom of her luxury accommodations. The large bathtub had enough room for her entire family, and Italian families tended to be big. It could be filled with something called Norimh milk, it smelled heavenly and did wonders to her skin.
While she had natural black hair of considerable volume and length, she had opted for a Saran style wig and used the marvelous automatic make up device to give her the same impressive eye make-up.
She was very pleased with the result and with the quite risqué gown of almost transparent whisper soft cotton like material hinting more than just shapes underneath, she felt quite sexy.
She left the bathroom and her rooms, not with a real goal in mind. She wanted to see if she could not find some sort of common room, she wanted to be seen and preferably by boys. Some of the other abductees were quite handsome, especially the tall, bald guy from Moscow. She had talked to him only once.
She almost jumped out of her skin as she turned to the door, after checking her reflection one last time and noticed a black shape standing right there.
Sofia was quick and her mind reached out for a hand mirror and accelerated it to arrow speed, aimed at the head of the female shape’s head.
The black dressed woman, was able to evade the unlikely missile in the very last moment by moving her head to the side ... The mirror crashed into the door where its brass frame bend like a pretzel and the glass shattered, giving testament to the force Sofia was able to invest into this telekinetic attack. Sofia was afraid and took steps backwards while her mind reached out for the glass shards. Feeling for multiple objects she could not easily see or concentrate at was much more demanding to her than hurling the mirror and she hissed. “Get out!”
The woman wearing, what on earth would have been called a morph suit, removed the smooth mask and held up her hand. “I mean you no harm. Please stop.”
Sofia did take the break in this chain of events to get a good hold on the largest shard and it started to rise into the air and silently behind the woman’s back.
However she was surprised when a second shard came up from the ground and darted through the air towards her throat!
It was pure instinct, as she swatted the glass shard out of its path.
The woman who had long red hair, large green eyes and a much lighter complexion then any of the Sarans she had seen so far, said with wide eyes. “Impressive, your abilities and your control of them is truly amazing.”
The woman could have been of any age between thirty and sixty, and while she was quite human, she somehow appeared more alien to her than the Gray Ones.
“Please let me introduce myself, I am Braxa, I am a Seth Shadow and I truly mean you no harm and all I want is talk to you.”
The woman in the black skintight bodysuit, despite her human appearance somehow felt very alien to her. “Sneaking into my bathroom without knocking isn’t the best way to get a conversation started.”
“I apologize, Sofia Pace. I must admit I was curious how you would react to my perhaps frightening appearance.”
“I was startled yes, but frightened? Signorina, I was abducted by gray skinned space aliens who tried to dissect me. A woman in a black morph suit doesn’t come close to frighten me after going through the things we all went through for the last days.”
“Most of the others in your group are not aware of their psionic abilities, how come you are and who trained you so well?”
Sofia cocked her head. “Psionic abilities?”
“The way you control matter without using your hands, is called telekinesis and it is one of many gifts that can develop in a person able to control Psionics.”
“I never had a name for it and I did not know there were others who have it too. I just knew I was able to touch things with what I always called my invisible hands.”
The black dressed woman smiled and said. “If you want I can explain most of it to you.”
“I noticed you have this ... psinics something too. Yes I like to know more and make sure it is not some sort of magic or a demon after all.”
“Psi-0h-nics,” The woman pronounced the word slowly and continued after Sofia had repeated the word slowly. “A demon is a form of malicious, evil entity or spirit that usually resides in the netherworld is it not?”
“In our faith, the catholic religion at least, demons possess people and can make people do all sorts of crazy things. Like taking with deep voices and vomiting at everybody. Well that is what the girl does in the movie, but I never felt talking in a deep voice or lose my lunch all over the place. I never rotated my head all the way around or been impolite to our priest. But my parents and the priest were convinced I was possessed, so I faked a successful exorcism and they let me alone sort of and I kept hiding it, no one ever trained me. I never talked to anyone about it.”
“They say there is a small group of immortal women hiding in the Igras nebula on a world no one can approach, who practice something akin to magic, but that is of course only one of many myths and stories you will hear about all this. While Saran is much more developed than Earth, psionics are only very basically understood. This is the case with most societies in known space. However there are more advanced species such as the Kermac, who are able to enslave entire planets with so called Will benders. They managed to unlock some of the secrets of psionics and even developed technology that is based on it, like mind shields. Devices that prevent telepaths from reading minds.”
Sofia, sat down on a chair before the make-up mirror and folded her hands in her lap. “There I was wanting to see if I can’t turn some guys heads and now I am all eager to hear more, but why the black outfit and mask. Could you not have simply told me that openly?”
“I am a Seth’s Shadow. This black suit is much more than just a garment or a symbol of our special group, but allows me to cloak, to become invisible to most sensors and all eyes. The gloves are weapons, called Seth’s fists. The suit, the hood and the gloves are products of a very old society that achieved a higher level of technological development, and yes I am not Saran, but care about them very much.”
Braxa pointed to the back of her head. “Some beings have a special gland, humans have it about here. It allows gifted beings to reach into a higher spatial condition, channel energies and use them to perform things that appear magical. The most common psionic power is telepathy, the ability to sense or even read another person’s mind. The range of this ability ranges from talents able to sense the presence of an animal or human, make out really intensive, active thoughts to telepaths that can extract the deepest information, make you forget things or plant memories and thought in your mind that you never had. But these are very rare and so far only the Saresii, a very old and highly developed species has these kinds of telepaths.”
“You are not of the Saresii either, right?”
“No, I am not even though I look very much like they do. I am of Coven.”
To Sofia it was just another name for another society she knew nothing about, but the woman’s explanation on psionics was fascinating to her. “I can’t read other people’s mind or at least I do not think so.”
“Neither can I, you and me are telekinetic talents. We manipulate matter and items with our minds. Some can manipulate only small items and get exhausted quickly. Others lift and move items many times their own weight with little effort. Yet other telekinets are able to perform surgical procedures, stop the heart of a person or levitate themselves and fly. The Saresii re-arranged their entire solar system with telekinetic powers, they were able to link all their psionic abilities together.”
Sofia gasped, “You mean move a planet?”
“Indeed, they moved seven planets that way, over a million years ago. However there is a legend about a race called the Narth, it is said they can stop the galaxy from rotating!”
“Only God could do that!” Sofia exclaimed.
“Maybe the legends speak of a god, who knows. What is your limit?”
“I am not sure, you mean how much I can lift with my invisible hands?”
“Yes, how much, how many items at one time and all that.”
Sofia wrinkled her forehead. “I uprooted a tree once and that exhausted me for weeks. If I concentrate and not disturbed, I can use more than two hands, but I have to see the items, otherwise I forget about them and drop them,” She kept thinking. “I never tried to lift myself.”
Sofia’s chair begun to rise along with her in it. She laughed in delight. “It’s actually easy.”
“You are amazingly versatile and that without any training!”
“I trained a lot, just not with anyone showing me.”
“We Shadows are much like a secret society or religious order. We are sworn to protect the real queen of Saran and we are considered the queens very own body guard, intelligence service and assassins if needed, but we are more and we decide if we are indeed protect a queen. We are few in numbers but we train martial arts and the use of psionic powers, you might be a perfect fit to become one of us.”