Xelloss leads Teresa into the next room where Seraya
disappeared. Inside is a makeshift command center. At a bank of
monitors with several keyboards and joystick is Garv, the image of a
map being scanned visible on the main screen. Next to him is a young
man with strange lavender hair that reaches out to points from his
head. Eris takes Teresa's coat and sets it aside, Seraya appearing and
leading the redhead to a chair.
"Garv, are we online," Xelloss asks as he moves to the
phone, placing it on a strange cradle before pressing a button and it
starts to dial.
"Almost," the rather scruffy-looking man mumbles.
"Time is always against us," Xel says with a sigh, the
lighter-haired young man moving beside him and talking to him in a
hushed tone away from Teresa.
"Xelloss, I know what you believe but I think this is
mistake. We're rushing her, she's old. She might pop."
"Haven't I always told you, Zelgadis, not to let fear
control your life."
On the other side of the room, Seraya attaches small EKG
sensors to the inside of Teresa's left elbow and the side of her neck.
Glancing around again at all the equipment, she asks the smaller girl,
"You did all this?" The only reply is a quiet 'mmhmm'.
"The pill you took is part of a trace program. It's
designed to disrupt your input/output carrier signal so we can
pinpoint your position," Xelloss explains to Teresa once Seraya
finishes with the sensors and moves to a second bank of monitors where
Eris and Zel wait.
If she didn't know better, Teresa would think she was being
talked about like a piece of equipment. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Zel answers with a dry tone, "buckle your
seatbelt, Dorothy, because Kansas is going bye-bye." Unsure how to
take the situation, Teresa takes a few deep breaths. Whatever that
pill was, it is causing strange sensations inside her now, almost as
if she is disconnecting from her own body.
Off to her right, something catches her eye. The red irises
look up and over at a shattered mirror and her own reflection from
several different angles looks back at her. As she watches, however,
the cracks start to melt away, almost as if the mirror were turning
liquid. "Did you...?" she starts to ask, glancing at the others before
looking back at the mirror.
Curious, she reaches forward and pokes two fingers at the
mirror. Surprisingly, it acts very much like liquid and ripples around
them. When Teresa pulls her fingers back, the reflective material
sticks to her. "Have you ever had a dream, Lina, that you were so sure
was real," Xelloss asks.
The strands of liquid mirror break but what's left remain
on Teresa's fingers, slowly melting further down them. "What if you
were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference
between the dream world, and the real world?"
As she watches, the liquid starts to spread, engulfing
Teresa's hand. "This can't be," she whispers as she looks at her own
reflection in her palm.
"Be what? Be real?" The silvery stuff starts creeping up
Teresa's arm, causing her to shiver.
"It's going into replication," Seraya noted as she watched
her monitor. Xelloss looks over to the tallest crewmember.
"Garv," he calls questioningly.
"Still nothing." On the screen, a wire frame tunnel passes
by.
"It's cold, it's cold!" Teresa starts to panic, the liquid
surrounding her torso and creeping up her neck. Behind her, Xelloss
opens his cell phone and hits a speed dial, talking into it.
"Hawk, we're going to need a signal soon." In front of
Seraya, the medical readouts go crazy.
"I've got a fibrillation," she calls. The situation is
getting tense; they have to hurry.
"Garv, location?"
"Targeting, almost there," he answers Xel's question. The
wire frame tunnel goes by faster, working through a maze.
"She's going into arrest," Ser cries over alarms going off.
The mirror substance has nearly enveloped Teresa, only her mouth and
eyes free from the silvery metal.
"Lock, I got her," Garv shouts over the alarms.
"Now Hawk, now!" The liquid metal emits an electronic
screeching as it flows down into Teresa's throat, the redhead
screaming as her vision breaks apart into darkness.
---
The pod is filled with a pink gooey liquid. Lina looks down
at herself, naked body plugged with hoses of some sort all over. She
pushes upward at the top of the pod, thin membrane stretching before
her hand breaks free. Sitting up, the hairless girl coughs weakly as
she pulls a strange hose out of her throat and mouth, the black tube
sinking back into the warm goo.
Looking down at herself, Lina sees her skin is pale white
and her body almost like a skeleton. Then a strange sensation of a
heavy weight on her neck comes over her and she slowly reaches up
behind her head, finding a large attachment that sticks out a foot
from the base of her skull. She tries to pull it out but the thing is
stuck; it would be easier to pull off a finger.
Then she notices her surroundings. Her hands slowly drop
away, attachment to her neck forgotten. Off to the side, she sees a
row of pods similar to the one she's sitting in. Inside each one is
another human being with similar hoses and attachments. Looking around
more, she's awed by huge towers each covered by rows upon rows of
similar pods. Leaning over the edge of her pod, there are even more
above and below on the tower she's connected to and she can't see the
ground, dark clouds blocking any light that might come from the sky.
From above a machine drops into Lina's view. It looks like
a robotic dragon, metal body reflecting the human's face. Metal wings
flap loudly from its back, allowing it to hover with the assistance of
anti-gravity boosters on its clawed feet. Two dark red crystals stare
at her from above, contemplating her.
One of the beast's powerful forearms rushes out and grabs
Lina around her thin neck, nearly pulling her out of the pod. She can
only struggle helplessly as she looks at herself in those hellish
eyes, hands gripping uselessly at the robot's claws. The lock on the
brainstem cable starts to turn quickly, causing the bald girl to wince
in agony from the sensation of grinding and pulling directly in her
brain. The lock finishes and the device is extracted; the dragon
machine drops Lina back into the pod and flies off.
Leaning against the edges of the pod and panting for
breath, the shivering girl doesn't get much of a break before the
black tubes attached to her body started exploding off in rapid
succession, snapping away and falling back down into the goo. When
they finish, a large hatch at the back opens wide and started to suck
the contents of the pod down into a tunnel, pulling Lina with it.
She slides along a dark tunnel along with the pink liquid
from her pod before reaching the end, crying out in surprise at the
long drop into a pool of ugly green-gray liquid. Lina struggles to
swim, not able to keep her head above with her weak body and sinks.
Overhead, a hovering vessel's doors open, light pouring
out. A large 6-fingered claw drops down, splashing into the liquid's
surface over where Lina disappeared. It quickly starts retracting,
pulling up the pale girl into the hovercraft.
Inside, through bleary eyes she is met with two
recognizable figures. Xelloss and Seraya watch as the exhausted girl
is wrapped in a towel by two other crewmembers. Xel has no sunglasses
and his purple eyes meet Lina's. "Welcome... to the real world."
Unable to take anymore, Lina passes into unconsciousness.
---
"We've done it, Seraya. We've found her." Voices. Overhead.
Lina opens her eyes a little, finding herself looking up at the blond
girl as she answers.
"I hope you're right."
"You don't have to hope. I know it." They both look down
when Lina whispers.
"Am I dead...?" Xelloss shakes his head slightly.
"Far from it."
---
When Lina regains consciousness again, she feels a strange
tingling all over. Forcing her eyes open again, she sees there are
dozens of long needles stuck in her body, a wire attached to each one.
"She still needs a lot of work," a long blond-haired man
comments to Xelloss.
"What are you doing," Lina asks quietly.
"Your muscles have atrophied, we're rebuilding them," Xel
replies as he checks the readouts from the long probes. Lina squints,
the light seeming to be too bright to her and causing pain.
"Why do my eyes hurt?" Xelloss watches the results a moment
before looking back to Lina.
"You've never used them before." He smiles sadly, resting a
hand on her forehead. "Rest, Lina. The answers are coming."
The rebuilding of the girl's body continues, the probes
doing their work along with most of the metal plugs being removed
surgically. It's a long and painful process overseen by the
purple-eyed leader.
---
Lina blinks her eyes open and sits up on the bed, glancing
around. She's in a tiny room, apparently her own. Examining herself,
she's dressed now in a gray long sleeve shirt, black pants and boots,
all probably having seen better days. She can feel the start of hair
growth, very short red hair starting to return on top of her head.
In her left arm, one of the remaining plugs has an IV
hooked up to it. Frowning to herself, she grips the tube and starts to
pull it out. She clenches her fist when she discovers how long the
needle is and grits her teeth, finally pulling the whole thing out
with a sigh of relief.
Dropping the IV, Lina rubs her arm, examining the plug
still there. Then, she lifts her head with a thought comes to her.
Hesitantly reaching up, she brushes her fingers along the back of her
neck and upward towards the round metal outlet still there. It's too
much and she starts to breathe faster just as her fingertips touch the
outer ring when the door opens suddenly.
In walks Xelloss. "Xelloss, what's happened to me? What is
this place?"
Xel quickly answers, "More important than 'what' is
'when'."
"'When'?"
"You believe it's the year 1999, when, in fact, it's closer
to 2199. I can't tell you exactly what year it is, because we honestly
don't know." Lina shakes her head a bit in disbelief. "There's nothing
I can say that will explain it for you, Lina. Come with me. See for
yourself."
Xelloss leads Lina out of the living area and up to the
floor above. "This is my ship, the Dragon Slayer. It's a hovercraft."
After climbing the ladder, Lina looks around curiously. "This is the
main deck." As she walks past, a teenaged boy with shoulder-length
dark blue hair follows Lina.
"This is the core," Xelloss says as Lina looks at a
decorative plaque. It reads 'Dragon Slayer, made in the USA. Year
2069.' Xel continues, "where we broadcast our pirate signal and hack
into the Matrix. Most of my crew, you already know," Xel continues as
he walks along the deck, Lina following. Seraya brushes a few locks of
blond hair out of her face as she pushes to her feet, joining the teen
in following Lina and Xelloss.
"This is Garv," Xel notes as he introduces the red-haired,
scowling man, "Eris," a young woman with black hair, "and Zelgadis."
Lina blinks a bit in surprise at the third. She remembered seeing him
before but he was nothing like he looks now. The lavender hair looks
like metal and his skin is blue with dark stones in some places. He
does not look cheerful.
"The ones you don't know, Hawk," a short black-haired young
man with emerald eyes nods when he meets Lina's eye, "and his big
brother, Gourry," the blond-haired man from before gives a wave in
greeting. "The little one behind you is Phibrizio," Xel finished the
introductions as Lina glances over her shoulder at the youth who gives
an innocent-looking grin. The whole gang is dressed similar to Lina,
colorless clothing that look more like thrift store rejects than a
ship's crew's uniforms.
"You wanted to know what the Matrix is, Lina?" Xel glances
over Lina's shoulder. "Seraya." The slim blond girl leads Lina to one
in a circle of seven chairs, all worn and well used in appearance.
Behind each are computer screens and control panels. Lina's helped up
into one of the chairs, Xelloss moving to the other side. Seraya locks
Lina's feet down into the chair's restraints. "Try to relax," he adds
before lightly pushing Lina's head back against the headrest. "This
will feel a little weird."
Behind Lina, a long probe is inserted into the plug at the
base of her skull. She arches as she screams silently and Xelloss nods
to Hawk at the control station. As soon as he presses a button, it all
ends. Lina is surrounded by white, and nothing else.
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