Chapter 13
AFTER THE MEAL they were back in Willy’s room. The clock on the wall now read, 7:50pm:
“It’s vital that you’re in the energy stasis pod as early as possible, so that Andy will analyse your vitals and integrate and adjust the shielding protocols,” Willy said talking like a veteran.
Wendy just stood there and said, “Ok, now what?”
“I want you to stand as rigid as possible,” Willy said adjusting her, putting her hands to her sides, making her stand upright in a military ‘stand at attention’ position, with head held upright, chin held high.
Lillian sat on one of the two armchairs and was watching the proceedings with a curious interest. Rudolf was tugging at the bed cover with his mouth, almost striping the bed bare now. Lillian paused in her concentration just enough to scold Rudolf, who stopped tugging the bed cover and he had the doggie
Chapter 14EUREKA FOUND HERSELF standing on a sea of smooth glass, it was transparent, she could see stars and galaxies beneath it, looking up– she realized that what she saw below was the reflection of what’s above.‘Am I dead? Is this heaven?’ She thought frantically.‘No, you are not dead Eureka, and this is not heaven; You’re in the Astral plane,’ A voice spoke.“The Astral plane? Who are you?” She asked.‘My name is Andy,’ came the answer.“You’re the AI, the Artificially Intelligent Operating System,” Eureka said smiling.‘Correct,’ Andy responded.Eureka cupped her hands and placed them on her cheeks, not out of cold but out of habit. Than she did a double take at her hands and she screamed!
Chapter 15WILLY MUST HAVE dozed off, the cold woke him up. He had slept while sitting, waiting for Eureka to return.Lillian was sitting in a curled up, as comfortable as much as possible position on that other armchair, breathing softly in a soundless sleep.“Kid—kid,” Willy said shaking her awake.She woke up reluctantly, her eyes were red, much deprived of sleep.“Go to your room and get some good sleep, we’ve been up all night,” Willy said to her.She looked at the direction that the empty floating transparent energy tube had been previously, but it had disappeared!“Is she back?” she asked staring at Willy,“No, not yet. But please go to your room and get some sleep,” Willy said to her.She nodded and stood up stretching herself, “Come on Rudolf, let’s go.”Her voice was slightly raspy from deprived slee
Chapter 16WHAT LAY BENEATH the pink clouds made Eureka gasp in surprise:“The Rainbow forest land!” exclaimed Orea.It was miles and miles of colourful glittering trees of multi-coloured leaves of rainbow colours.“From a distance it gives off those rainbow hues but if we get closer you will realize that most of the trees are purple or green in colour,” Orea explained grasping on the reigns of her flying unicorn.“What are those?” Eureka said pointing down. “Are they tree houses? Those trees must be huge!”“Yes that’s a village belonging to the Succubinos, you’re right the trees in our world are huge, the tallest can stand 200 meters or even more higher than that, from its base to the tip,” Orea said.They reached a much more impressive looking Succubino village: it had sky bridges connecting each tree houses from
Chapter 17LILLIAN WOKE UP SLOWLY, she had a sour feeling in her mouth, she realized that due to the recent irregular sleeping pattern that she was having, she hadn’t brushed her teeth the whole of yesterday.Rudolf laid on the floor resting his head on his front paws, he raised his head and his tail thumped the floor softly, when Lillian walked past him to the bathroom.Lillian brushed her teeth and had a shower. She took off what she had been wearing for the past two days now and wore some fresh clothes, she wore a white clean sweater and her long shredded denim jeans pants.For her feet she wore a pair of common converse shoes.She had just finished brushing and tying her blond hair into a neat ponytail behind her head with a black hair tie, when the knock sounded on her door,It was a topic of paranoia, the gut feeling that one day she would open the door and see a complete stranger standing there with G
Chapter 18THE DOZEN MEN rushed at him in an onslaught all at once, with each block or parry the Stranger would send one or two of his attackers flying backwards or forward with a single skilful punch, uppercut or jab. With the use of his attacker’s own momentum, that he was using as weapon against each one of them. The fallen men behind him who stood up behind him, would be greeted yet again and again with the Stranger’s left, or right foot and they would fall down yet again, and again. The Stranger looked healthier and all the more vigorous, more and more than ever, as the fight progressed on, while the men looked torn, exhausted, broken and defeated, more and more. Most of them were nursing a broken hand or a broken foot, or both by now.The Stranger had accomplished all that, while still keeping his left hand behind his back!He had fought with only one arm, his right arm.More than just one-man spit to the floo
Chapter 19TRISTAN REMOVED the mooring lines from the cleats, the stern-lines and the bow-lines,He started the engine, it was an easy key start. And he gently reverse manoeuvred the boat out of the pylons.When the boat was clear out he shifted the gear to forward and eased the boat onwards, he throttled the engine and the boat picked up speed:“I’m sorry I forgot, there’s life jackets in that hatch,” Tristan said pointing.Lillian stooped down and fiddled with the latch opening it, Tristan was standing waiting calmly behind the steer for the duo to put on the life jackets, even Rudolf had one on, that done; Tristan revved forward the throttle and picked up speed.Lillian’s adrenaline pumped faster as the boat went faster, the wind hitting her face, feeling slightly dizzy she sat down on the long faded brown leather lounge seat.The Bird Island was a speck on the horizon, soon
Chapter 20A DEEP SADNESS was felt automatically, as the pair wordlessly contemplated the massive loss of animal lives: the birds, the Galapagos tortoises, the plants that they fed on, the insects and of course the other lizards all gone now, lost forever.Tristan carefully concealed a deep seated anger he now felt for the person responsible for all these, but he felt helpless as he thought of how justice for the evil crime will never be meted out to the perpetrator.“Is it poisonous or can it bite?” Tristan asked breaking the awfully painful sad silence.“No,” Lillian replied. “I don’t think it bites, or it’s poisonous, I mean that’s from what I have researched about, I wrote an essay composition in school.”Tristan had reached out of the boat’s starboard side to haul the small creature in.“Wait–” Lillian said, but she was late, Trista
Chapter 21-IT WAS ALREADY past 4:00pm,Willy was standing on the balcony of the first floor.Willy Goodwill was perplexed, why didn’t Lillian and Rudolf come out for lunch?He had walked past Lillian’s room at 1pm and knocked before proceeding to the dining area of the resort but there was no reply,He had thought that probably the kid did not want to be disturbed, sometimes you had a too big breakfast and you decided to skip lunch that kind of a thing, probably. But—Still it was unsettling, Willy couldn’t let that one pass; he had to make sure—Willy left the balcony and went towards Lillian’s room, he knocked again and waited, no reply.He switched on the phantom effect and he went through the door like a ghost.They were gone! Willy felt panic hit him like an overloaded semi-trailer.. . . . .Meanwhile