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These are my stories that I am currently writing: Melonie Kithright, The Dragon Trilogy-Book 1, and a Matrix fanfic. Check back periodically for updates!
Melonie Kithright
Chapter 1
Hi! My name is Melonie Kithright and I’m 13 years old. My birthday is September 22. I’m short, about 5’, and I weigh around 100 pounds. I have brownish-blonde hair and gray eyes. I’m
just your average, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary girl. Except that I tesser. Well, not exactly like in A Wrinkle in Time. I don’t do it myself. I just get transported to whatever place at whatever time. You probably don’t believe me, but that’s all right. The first time it happened, I thought it was a dream. Let me tell you about it.
I live, with my mom and dad, older brother Russell, twin 3-year old sisters Tatiana and Autumn, and ferret Clique, in a two story blue house. We live in the city of Sacramento, California. My best friend, Lynnsey Adams, lives across the street from us. I don’t call her Lynnsey. She’s “Lynn” to me, just like I’m “Mel” to her. I think Lynn is so pretty. She has long brown hair, dark brown eyes, is slender, is about 5’ 2”, and doesn’t wear glasses.
As I lounged on my purple bed and read a fantasy book, Mom called me downstairs. “Just a minute, Mom!” I yelled out, thinking I would finish the page. “Lynnsey’s here!” Mom called back. I put down my book, unfortunately at a really exciting part. I yelled to Lynn to come upstairs to my room. You may think it’s rude that I didn’t go down to greet her, but we see each other so much we are practically sisters.
Now let me tell you some things about Lynn and I. We are both astronomy freaks, and want to be astronauts when we get older. We both own a telescope: Lynn a 12” she got off ebay.com and I an 8.” We both are also part of the Astronomical League in our district. (For those of you that don’t know, the Astronomical League is an astronomy club, just like there are chess and art clubs.) And, we both have definitely not, not ever, abso-bally-lutely ever been to a NASA Space Center, though we want to go to one. By the way, I got “abso-bally-lutely” from a book I read. You can guess that I love to read.
O.K., back to now. I heard Lynn run upstairs, her feet thud-thudding against our soft, thick carpet. She burst into my astronomy poster-covered bedroom. “Hey, Mel! How ya doin’?”
“I’m fine. How ya doin’?” I asked back. “Fine!” she replied, flopping (literally) onto my squishy bed with her brown hair flying every which way. That’s our usual relay, though when I go to her house I’m the one who does the flopping. Russell, tall, with black hair and brown eyes, and who Lynn has a crush on, came into my room. I heard my sisters wailing loudly over who gets their favorite doll, Minty. That’s when it happened.
Simultaneously, as Lynn flopped onto the bed, Russell came into the room, and Tatiana and Autumn started fighting, everything started spinning around me. The room, Russell, and the girls’ cries faded away like they went down the drain in a whirlpool. Colors started swirling in front of my eyes. My stomach felt like I was being spun upside-down after I had just eaten a big meal. I felt like I was rushing somewhere at the speed of light, but there was no air coming against me. The colors faded into black, and the black faded into a fog. The fog gradually turned into a white wall, or was it a ceiling? It could have been a floor.
Lynn’s hand had been touching mine when my room started spinning, and she was right beside me. We gazed around us in fear and amazement. We were floating in mid-air in a long tubular room. There were odd-looking computers and protruding, tangled wires and small cubbyholes and all sorts of things around us. There wasn’t any ceiling or floor, though there were things sticking out all over that looked like handles on a playground. Two round steel doors were on either end. Of course, we took this in within a few seconds.
Lynn asked fearfully, “What happened? Where’s your bed, and your room?”
I didn’t answer, and Lynn knew that I didn’t know. I was really scared, and my heart was pounding like a drum. I thought, This doesn’t happen in real life. I must be in a nightmare. I did the only thing I could think of to see if this was real or not. I screamed. Lynn grabbed on tightly to me, but didn’t utter a sound; she was so petrified.
Click!
Chapter 2
I stopped screaming, and held my breath. The round door on the left started to open. Lynn and I held on to each other tighter. The door opened all the way, and we saw a man in a blue flight suit float in. He was tall, about 5’ 8”, around 150 pounds, had steel blue eyes that seemed like they pierced right through you, and black hair. He looked to be somewhere in his mid-thirties. He looked right at us, his eyes widening, and his mouth dropped open. “Who are you, and how did you get here?” he asked in a smooth, amazed voice. Lynn and I looked at each other, communicating with our eyes. We didn’t have the slightest idea how to answer him. We didn’t know anything about him, and we could be anywhere. We ourselves didn’t know how we got here.
Almost as if he could read our thoughts, the man said, “I’m Commander Collins, and you’re on the International Space Station. I don’t know how you got here, but you’re in deep trouble being on here without NASA’s permission.” Lynn looked at me. Now it was our turn for our eyes to become wide. The Space Station? We were in space! This has got to be a dream, I thought. Just then a woman in a blue flight suit floated in, and stopped short as the sight of two strange girls, us. “Janet, will you get Control on line? We have a little problem.” Commander Collins said.
Janet stared at Lynn, then at me. She went back to Lynn, and then again to me. “I’ll go get Control.” Janet said, pushing herself with the handholds out the door.
Commander Collins told Lynn and I to follow him, and “not touch anything.” He grabbed onto some handholds and pushed himself outside the door. Lynn and I followed his example, and found ourselves speeding toward a window in a large, square room. We bumped right into it, were reflected backwards (if you can use such a term with humans), and stopped in the middle of the room. There were windows on two sides of the room, and Lynn and I gasped as we saw outside. Out of the round window to our right we saw the earth, large and round in a perfect circle. There were clouds in beautiful swirled patterns, and the ocean below them was a gorgeous deep blue color. We saw green land, and brown land, and patches of sandy yellow. The continents we were looking at were Asia and Africa, and right beneath us was the Middle East. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Tears came to my eyes as I thought, How could so much war and poverty be going on in such a small world? Why can’t people learn to love each other and share this beautiful earth, like God wants us to? I turned toward the left-hand window, putting away thoughts of war and trouble.
Out the other window was a black sky, filled with twinkling stars and some planets looking like large stars that didn’t twinkle. We saw more stars than on earth, because the atmosphere didn’t block the view. I thought, I wish I could have brought my telescope with me. Inside the cubical room were more computer screens, and chairs attached to the ground. A man sitting at a computer undid the strap that was holding him onto the chair and turned around. He was about 5’ 6”, had almond-brown hair, and weighed about the same as Collins. He asked Commander Collins who we were. “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me who they were. I don’t know how they got here, either.”
Lynn said, “I’m Lynnsey Adams, and this is my best friend Melonie Kithright. Uh, we would have answered you, Commander Collins, but we didn’t know where we were, and who you were. We’ve been taught not to talk to strangers. I’m sorry.”
“Well, now we have the who. But what about the how? How did you get here? We thoroughly checked the shuttle that came up here, and didn’t see you enter onto the space station. And what were you screaming about?” asked Commander Collins.
Just then Janet came in. “Control is ready and waiting,” she said.
We all went to a screen in the side of one of the walls. We saw a man in a control room looking up at us, with a puzzled look on his face. There was a video camera above the screen, and I felt kind of (O.K., a lot) scared now that NASA was going to find out about Lynn and I. What if we went to a juvenile detention center? What if we couldn’t ever now become astronauts? I was really frightened, and looked at Lynn. Her face was pale, like she had a fever. She must have been thinking the same thoughts, too. Commander Collins interrupted my thoughts. “Control, this is ISS. Do you hear me?”
After a few seconds, the man on the screen opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly the screen with the picture of the ISS control room became fuzzy. In two seconds, it just showed static. The lights of the space station went out, and we heard even more static than before over the radio. It was eerie, with only a little light coming from the windows.
Chapter 3
Commander Collins started, and all the astronauts stared at each other. Lynn and I gasped, and it was all I could do from asking what happened. Janet saved me from asking and sounding like I was scared. She asked fearfully (relieving me that I did have a right to be scared), “What was that?”
The man at the computer replied, “I don’t know. What I do know is that if we don’t get the power back soon, we’ll die from lack of oxygen. Not to scare these two girls here, though.”
He sure scared me thoroughly. A door in front of us swung open, and another lady pushed herself in. She and Janet looked like twins. They both had blonde hair, and were about 5’ 3”. This lady, though, was thinner than Janet. Her face was pale. “Uh, Commander Collins,” she said, taking no notice of Lynn and I, “the generator won’t work. I’m afraid we’ll have to manually find the problem. Erik can search the computers, with your permission.”
The man at the computer pushed himself off to Commander Collins. Commander Collins ordered, “Erik, you don’t have much time. I’ll go see if I can get the generator going, and Janet can try to establish contact with Control. Kelly, come with me. You’ll help me with the generator. Girls,” he said, turning to us, “I don’t know what you can do. How about you stay out of the way in the room through that door,” pointing to a door on the left.
The only light was coming through the window on the right, from the earth. Lynn started to push herself towards the door that Collins had pointed to, but overdid it a little. She smacked straight into a counter that was hidden in a corner. I pushed myself towards her, to try to help her, but smacked into her. We both banged hard into the counter. I started to giggle, even though we were in an emergency. Lynn asked me what was so funny. I said, “I’m not sure. It’s just that I tried to help you, and ended up banging myself and you into the counter.”
“By the way, try not to talk. That way you save oxygen.” Erik told us.
I stopped giggling, and Lynn and I finally made it to the room. It was pitch black in the room, because the door shut us off the central room. “Let’s see if there are beds in here. Maybe we could lie in them while we’re waiting,” I said.
Lynn and I managed to find some beds by touch. The beds in space are like sleeping bags attached to a wall, but since there’s no gravity, you aren’t sleeping up, down or sideways. After struggling with the straps for a while, I finally got myself in. I whispered to Lynn, “Don’t fall asleep. If you do, you could never wake up.”
Lynn whispered back, “Don’t worry, I won’t. Hold my hand, so that we know we’re not asleep.”
I had a feeling it was more than just falling asleep; she wanted some reassurance. I grasped blindly around, and finally found Lynn’s hand. It was cool, like she was very nervous. I suspected my hand felt the same, too. We passed the time by squeezing each other’s hand.
I started thinking in the quiet. I wonder what everyone else is doing on earth. I wonder what Russell thought. He probably saw us disappear. I hope Tatiana and Autumn resolved their fight. I hope Mom and Dad don’t worry too much. Oh, I miss them so much. I’ll probably never see my family again. I hope Clique is doing all right and isn’t chewing the bars of his cage.
Oh Lord, please let us somehow get back to earth, or to not die. I think it’s cool that we’re in space, but I’m afraid we’ll die. Please help Erik to find the problem, and help Kelly and Commander Collins get the generator going, and help Janet to establish contact with Control. Even though I’m afraid of Control seeing Lynn and I, they might be able to help us, like sending a shuttle up. Lord, please don’t let Lynn and I get sent to jail. You know we never intended to be up here, and still want to be astronauts. Please let Mission Control see that. Let them believe we just somehow got here without trying to. Thank you for listening to me. Protect my and Lynn’s family. I love you so much. You are so wonderful. “Amen.”
“What did you say that for? Where you praying?” came Lynn’s whisper.
I opened my eyes. “Yes, I was praying. Have you been praying?”
“Mmhm. I was praying, too. I hope we don’t die.”
“Me, too.” I replied. We lay there for what seemed like an eternity. After a while, I started to feel sleepy and yawned. I heard Lynn yawn, too. Suddenly I realized why I was so sleepy all of a sudden. The oxygen in this room was going out! I undid the straps on my sleeping bag, still holding Lynn’s hand, and pulled myself along her arm to her. “Lynn, don’t fall asleep! Undo the straps holding you in and go towards the door! We need to get to the central room where there’s more oxygen!” I hope, I thought.
Lynn started to undo her straps. I helped her with them. We groped our way across the room to the door. We tried to open it, but it was heavier than I thought it had been. The more struggling we did, the sleepier we got. It seemed like we struggled with the door for hours. Finally, Lynn let go of the door and just started floating there. “Mel,” came her voice in a very weak whisper, “I can’t struggle with it any more. I can’t struggle with the door or the sleepiness. I love you, and I’ll see you in...” Her voice faded away. I stopped holding onto the door and grabbed tightly onto Lynn. She was still breathing, but shallow. My grip on her weakened, and I felt like I was going to pass out. Blackness came over me, and the last thought that came to my mind before I dead fainted was a prayer. Lord, help!
Chapter 4
I saw light. Glaring, white light that hurt my eyes. My head pounded like a jet plane. As I gradually stopped squinting, I saw I was strapped to some sort of blue bag, kind of like a sleeping bag. A woman’s soft, feminine voice said, “Come on, wake up.”
I had no clue as to where I was. The woman came into view, and then it hit me like a rock. I was still in the International Space Station, and what was more I was still alive! Then I remembered Lynn, and her last words. I love you, and I’ll see you in... The woman floating next to me was Kelly, and she tried to get me to drink some water in a pouch. I turned my head away from the white straw and practically screamed (as well as you can with a voice that will only croak), “Where’s Lynn? Is she alive?”
“Lynn’s alive and well, though she has a bad headache. You won’t be, though, if you don’t drink this water,” replied Kelly. I obediently started drinking from the straw, and whenever water squirted out that didn’t go in my mouth, it started floating around. It looked like a molecule of water that you see on those Capri Sun commercials.
After I had finished the water and a Tylenol pill Kelly gave me, she let me out of the bag (get it? Let the cat out of the bag? O.K., stupid joke). I started chasing the water droplets around and sucking them so they wouldn’t damage anything. Kelly gave me a platter of astronaut food. “What’s this?” I asked.
“This is your breakfast. It’s scrambled eggs and toast.”
“Sooo, I’ve been asleep all night?”
“Yes. You’ve been asleep for a long time.”
I ate ravenously, a little surprised that it didn’t taste too bad. It was kind of powdery, but at least it was filling. When I was done eating, I asked, “Where are Lynn and the rest?”
She said, “They’re in the central room. We’re having a little meeting, and they told me to take you and join them once you woke up and were taken care of. So if you’ll come this way, please.”
“Excuse me,” I said, a little embarrassed, “but where’s the bathroom?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s right over here,” Kelly said, pointing to a door next to some in-the-wall drawers.
She showed me how to use it, and I did it. After I came back out, we pulled ourselves to the door. I asked, “Can you open it? It’s really heavy.”
She said, surprised, “I can open it. It’s not that heavy. You should be able to open it, too.”
“Let me try,” I said.
I grabbed the handle and pulled with all my might. It opened so easily I was almost slammed against the wall next to it. “Careful there!” Kelly said.
I floated into the central room, with Kelly behind me, to the knot of people in the center. There were two more people there, who I hadn’t seen last night. (Was it last night, or this morning, or yesterday? I didn’t know the time.) They were men, and one was short, 5’ 1”, and looked Asian. The other man had red hair, green eyes, was thin, and about 6’. “Oh, I’m glad you’re all right. We were worried about you. Now we have some things to discuss,” said Commander Collins.
I circled around the group of people until I found Lynn. “Lynn! You’re all right! I thought you were dead!” I said.
She grabbed me and nearly squeezed the breath out of me with her huge hug. “Oh Mel! I’m glad you’re O.K. I was so worried that they sent me out of the room,” she breathlessly replied.
Commander Collins called the meeting to order. “All right, everyone. We will give each other necessary information and get everyone up to date. The girls will start by telling their names, how old they are, where they live, and how they got here.”
All eyes turned on Lynn and I. I became extremely nervous, and hoped Lynn would start talking. She didn’t, so it was up to me to start. “Uh, I’m Melonie Kithright, um, I’m 13 years old, and I live in Sacramento, California.”
I nudged Lynn after a few long, quiet seconds. “Oh, yeah. I’m Lynnsey Adams, I’m also 13 years old, and, uh, I live in Sacramento, California.”
We waited a few more long, quiet seconds, and Commander Collins asked pointedly, “Well, how did you get here?”
This was the part I was dreading. I mind as well get on with it. “Uh, we’re not exactly sure, sir. You see, uh, Lynn had just come over to my house and, uh, we were on the bed and Russell came into the room and, um, the room started spinning around and colors were in front of me and black came after that and uh I felt like I was going really fast and the room you uh saw us first in came into view and I screamed because I was scared.”
I said this really fast, so fast no one understood me that well. “Will you repeat that, and slower?” Commander Collins said.
“Lynn had just come over and flopped onto my bed. At the same time, my older brother Russell came into the room. Lynn’s hand was touching mine when the room disappeared. There were instead colors, and then blackness came after that. The black faded into a fog, and the fog turned into the room you first saw us in. When there were colors and black, it felt like I was going really fast somewhere, though there was no air against me. You heard me scream because I was scared.”
Lynn agreed with me wholeheartedly. “Yeah, the same thing happened to me, too.”
Everyone stared at us. “You expect us to believe that?” asked Erik.
“Ever heard of tessering, like in A Wrinkle in Time?” I said.
Commander Collins had a look of disbelief on his face. “You have got to be kidding. That’s from a book, a fiction fantasy book,” he said. I noticed he punctuated the words “fiction” and “fantasy.”
Lynn said down-spiritedly, “I knew no one would believe us.”
The Asian man said, “Well, let’s just pretend they’re telling the truth. We have some even more important business to attend to. By the way, girls,” he said to us, “I’m Chang Mai, a mission specialist.”
The man with red hair said, “And I’m Calvin Atcid. I’m a payload specialist from Canada.”
“But wait!” cried Lynn, “How come Mel and I are still alive, and how did the power come back on? We don’t know anything yet.”
“I’ll answer that question,” said Janet. “Erik searched the computers, and found out they had been burned out by gamma rays, we think that are from a solar flare. The generators hadn’t been running, so Kelly and Commander Collins were able to get them running. We have never had to use the generators before, because they were always kept for emergencies. I never was able to establish contact with Houston, so we think they were hit by the solar flare. The generators didn’t supply oxygen to the room you two were in, so that’s why you passed out. Erik fixed the computers, about an hour after we were hit. We went to get you two, and saw you had fainted. So we gave you medical attention. You woke up after a long night’s sleep.”
“We were asleep for a whole night? Wow! But what about the door? It seemed really heavy when we tried to open it to get more oxygen. Why?” I asked.
“Because when you started to run out of oxygen, your body got weaker and things started to seem more heavy, even though they’re weightless,” Janet said.
“All right, now we’ve got the basics down. Let’s move onto more important matters, though I still don’t believe your story,” Commander Collins said, looking accusingly at Lynn and I. He turned his eyes away and continued on.
“We’re cut off from Houston because of a solar flare. They can’t send shuttles up, and there’s no way to get off here without one. The astronauts on the ISS used the emergency module in 2003 after the Columbia crashed, so that’s gone now. We have about a month’s supply of oxygen and food, and who knows how long before things will get repaired on Earth. We need the food to keep our strength up; we can conserve it a little. We won’t eat as much as we usually do; we’ll all share our food with each other. I think each person could get three-fourths of a whole meal. Drinks are conserved; we have enough to last us for two months, but since we don’t know when we’ll get off, each person only gets three drinks a day. We can all take turns exercising, but since you breath more after exercising, you won’t be able to exercise for more than a half hour each. And, of course, no EVAs at all. Janet will keep trying to contact NASA, and if anyone knows anything at all about radios, communication, etc., then they can try to help her. Any questions?”
There were none. To me, it all seemed hopeless. If only Lynn and I could get back home the way we came so we wouldn’t have to go through this! I realized what I just thought was kind of selfish. If only we all could get back on Earth the way Lynn and I came. That was better.
Chapter 5
We all dispersed to different areas of the ISS. Lynn and I went to the window overlooking the earth. “Lynn, to help get our minds off dying up here, do you want to ask someone to show us around the space station?” I asked.
Lynn glanced suddenly, fearfully at me. “Do you really think we will die up here?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I’d think that God would protect us, but if the whole world’s electronics weren’t working, I don’t know how we’ll get back down there. They can’t fix all the computers and stuff in a month, can they? I read a book by Larry Burkett about a worldwide solar flare. A ton of crime and stuff went on, and any astronauts in space died. They couldn’t fix the electronic stuff for a long time.”
“You sure raised my hopes,” said Lynn sarcastically. “I think we ought to ask for that tour now.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go ask Erik. He’d probably be willing to show us around.”
We floated over to Erik, sitting at a computer, and asked him. He said, “I’d love to. If you’ll be here for a while, you’ll want to know this place pretty well.”
He got up and floated to the door that we had first entered the central room through. We followed him into the room that we had first found ourselves in. “This room holds some of the computers that we do scientific experiments with. A couple hours before you two showed up, we had just finished an experiment having to do with matter in weightless conditions.” He said this in a “tour guide” voice that almost made me laugh out loud.
He led us through the door on the other side of the room. The room we were now in had some cabinets, counters, and strange things that I didn’t know what they were. “This is another lab room. Those things with the wire sticking out all over are some new scientific stuff that is being tested. They will help with learning more about cancer.”
We went through another door, and found ourselves in what immediately was probably our favorite room in the whole space station. Above our heads was a dome that could open, like an observatory dome. In the middle of the round room was a 16” telescope permanently installed. “Whoa!” I said.
“Yeah, whoa!” Lynn echoed.
“This is our telescope, and we use it for different things. Sometimes, when we have free time, we’ll just look at different stuff in the skies for fun. My favorite thing to look at is the Orion Nebula, or the Great Nebula,” Erik said.
“We love astronomy, and we each have a telescope of our own,” Lynn said.
Erik answered, “Cool!”
“Yeah, and we want to be astronauts, too,” I said.
“That’s awesome! Now that you’ve had a taste of what being an astronaut and being up in space is like, do you still want to be astronauts?” Erik said.
Lynn exclaimed, “I sure do! Now that I know what it’s like, I want to be one even more.”
“Me, too!” I said.
“Well, maybe sometime we’ll let you have a view through our telescope,” Erik said.
“That’d be great!” Lynn said.
“Okay, now let’s show you the rest of the ISS,” Erik said, walking (actually floating) away. We followed him through the rest of the space station, seeing the eating, sleeping, and scientific modules. There was supposed to be an emergency vehicle, but the three astronauts on the ISS when the space shuttle Columbia blew up had used it. A shuttle had been scheduled to bring another one up a week from today, but that was now out of the picture.
At the end of the day (well, at the time we’re supposed to go to bed, because we were facing the sun [sorry for using so many parentheses, but they’re so useful!]), we went to the central room and ate supper. There was freeze-dried roast beef, freeze-dried mashed potatoes, freeze-dried carrots, free--well, you get the picture. Anyway, we had a complete meal that we added water to and heated. It was actually pretty good (too bad we had to share packets!). There was even Neapolitan ice cream for dessert! We all went to bed half-full, but Lynn and I had a hard time going to sleep. Kelly had given us some extra long johns to sleep in. They were kind of too big for us, and bagged all over, but we were glad we didn’t have to sleep in our clothes. We had found out that this was our second day on here.
“Lynn,” I whispered to her in the dark as we lay-stood-leaned in our sleeping bags, “What do you think our parents and brothers and sisters are doing?”
“I don’t know, probably praying and dealing with no electricity.”
“I can’t believe we’re on the International Space Station! It’s so unbelievable, though I wish we had been able to get contact with our parents,” I said. “I just got a great idea! Let’s ask someone if there’s a Bible on here.”
Lynn answered sarcastically, “Yah, sure, like there’s people that leave Gideon Bibles on space ships and space stations. I doubt if any of these astronauts are Christians. The only way that there would be a Bible up here was if someone forgot theirs.”
“Hey, don’t automatically assume that no one is a Christian. Maybe one of the astronauts is one. We don’t know.”
“Well, we didn’t see anyone pray during supper.”
“We prayed in our heads, but we didn’t show that we did. Maybe that’s what someone else is doing,” I said.
“I still doubt it… I feel weak, more weak than usual,” Lynn said.
I remembered something I had read about space, and told Lynn about it. “I think that’s because your muscles don’t get used very much in 0 G’s,” (G stands for gravity; on earth is 1 G, and no gravity is 0 G’s) “so you get weaker. That’s why astronauts exercise a lot. Let’s go to sleep.”
Chapter 6
Oh, no! I’m suffocating in a dark room. “Lynn, where are you?” I cry.
“Mel, what’s happening? It’s like we’re reliving when we almost suffocated!” Lynn’s voice said.
I grasp for her hand, and start tumbling in the air. I can’t stop; I’m tumbling over and over, over and over. I can’t see where I’m tumbling; my body keeps rolling over and over and my mind can’t stop it. Someone is screaming; light is coming. “Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh!”
Suddenly I found myself awake, screaming. Lynn was screaming, too. Janet was in the room with us, looking very concerned. “Mel, Lynn, what’s wrong?” Janet asked.
“I, uh, just had a nightmare, that’s all,” I said.
“Me, too,” Lynn, said.
There was an uncomfortable period of silence. Finally, Janet broke the silence. “Breakfast is almost ready. I’ll leave you two to get ready.”
When Janet had left the room and closed the door, I got out of the sleeping bag and turned towards Lynn. “You had a nightmare at the exact same time as I did?”
Lynn got out of her bag and looked at the floor before answering. “Yes. But you know what’s weird? You never have nightmares. Neither do I. But we had one, at the exact same time. I woke up screaming, at the same time as you.”
“What was yours about?” I asked.
Lynn answered, “I was suffocating in a dark room, but I didn’t faint.”
“Oh my word! That was what mine was like. I reached for your hand, and started tumbling over and over. It was awful! I couldn’t stop, and it was like my mind didn’t have any control over my body. It was almost as if gravity was all over, pulling my body so fast it was tumbling.”
Lynn gasped. “That is exactly what happened to me! I heard you ask where I was, but I didn’t answer because I was so scared.”
“Did you say that it was like we were reliving what happened yesterday?”
“Yes!”
I stared at Lynn; fear or something rising up in me. “Our dream is exactly the same. Something’s wrong, or I don’t know what. We had the same dream at the same time. Lynn, I’m really scared. This just doesn’t happen.”
Lynn began to look scared. “Wha... what if this wasn’t... wasn’t a dream? I mean, what if this really happened? Like that Star Trek episode where the ship kept going through a time cycle?”
“But we’re here on another day, and things aren’t the same. That couldn’t be the reason. But anyway, should we tell anyone about this? Wouldn’t they just laugh like they did at our story about how we got here?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
Lynn had a forlorn look on her face. I wanted to cheer her up, like give her a hug and say, Don’t worry. Everything will be all right. I know exactly what to do. In my dreams! I sighed. “We’ll get back somehow. I don’t know when or how, but we’ll get back.”
Chapter 7
We floated out of our room after getting dressed silently. Everyone was floating around the table, their packets of food in front of them. Chang grinned at us. “The two little screaming ladies finally join us late. For that you two get to share one meal, half and half.”
I blushed, and Lynn scowled. “Well, you’d scream too if the same thing happened to you.”
Chang grinned even wider. “Ah, but the thing is that I’ve outgrown nightmares.”
Lynn didn’t even answer. She ripped open her packet of pancakes angrily, spilling some of the little round dried disks. “Hey,” I cried. “Those are mine, too!”
“Wow, don’t get so touchy touchy!”
I stared at her, surprised. She usually wasn’t grumpy, but she still hadn’t stopped scowling. “Lynn, what’s wrong?”
She looked at me with a withering look. “There is nothing wrong with me. You are the one who’s being grumpy. And look, you spilled a drop of water!”
The other astronauts looked on, a little embarrassed, as she took a pancake disk and scooped up the little drop, then placed it on the warm “stove” surface to heat up. I looked down at my little pancake disks. Yeah, so what if I spilled a droplet? I would have scooped it up. I finished hydrating my disks, then put them on the stove to heat, too. I didn’t talk to her during the remainder of the meal, but I did join in on the conversation with the others around the table.
Afterwards I asked Kelly if there was a Bible on the ISS. She answered, “You know, I don’t think so. Commander Collins might have one, because he is Mormon, but I doubt it.”
She looked at me strangely. “Are you…” she said before shaking her head and turning away. I watched her go, wondering what she was going to ask. I went to look for Commander Collins.
A Mormon, huh? This should be very interesting.
I floated into the central room. Collins was over by the radio with Janet. They were discussing something about sending a light signal using Morse code to earth.
“Hey, uh, sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got a question, Commander.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you happen to have a Bible?”
Commander Collins stared at me. “A Bible?”
I looked down at the floor, embarrassed. “Yeah. I wanted to read it.”
“Well, I usually don’t carry a Bible with when I go up into space. If you want, when we get back on Earth, I can get you a book that would help explain the Bible. It’s called the Book of Mormon.”
I looked at him. “No thanks. I know what it says. I’ll just take the Bible.”
Commander Collins looked at me oddly. “Okay, then.”
That’s the second time someone today has looked at me weird. I wonder if I look okay.
“Thanks.”
“Yup. No prob.” He turned to Janet. “All righty then, we’ll try it. But I doubt it’ll work…”
I wandered away. I decided to check out the observatory (which had an open glass roof), to get acquainted with it. I passed Lynn in our room, who was just floating in mid-air, obviously thinking. I almost stopped to ask if she wanted to come with, but thought better of it with the way she acted at breakfast. I entered the observatory, and looked at the telescope. It was an absolute beauty, made specifically for the ISS by a highly reputable company. It had a case attached to the wall that was full of eyepieces, Barlow lenses, camera adapters, and other accessories. On a console near it was the control panel, with specific buttons for moving it, focusing, taking pictures, etc. The actual cameras were in special boxes in a cabinet. There were two CCD cameras, one for deep sky pics and the other for planetary-lunar pictures. There were also several kinds of regular telescopic cameras, brought up by Erik.
I stayed a while, exploring every nook and cranny of that room. After I had seen everything, my eyes settled on the telescope, and I wondered if it would be okay for me to use it. I mean, I have used AutoStar before, and how much different could that computer controller be from this one? Besides the fact that AutoStar was made for amateurs, and this was made for pros. I went over to the console and began studying it. It didn’t look too difficult; I just had to figure out which buttons controlled the different axes of the telescope. A thought crept into my mind.
You know, Mel, you really shouldn’t try to figure this out yourself. Go get Erik to help!
Another thought countered it.
No, it’s okay. I just gotta play around with it. Experiment a little. I’ll soon be handling it like a pro!
No, it’s not okay. You could break it!
Break it? Yeah, right! The most I could do is swing it around in the wrong direction!
You need to ask, anyway! This is government property. You could get in big trouble with NASA if you use it!
Not if anyone knows.
God knows. He’s here right now!
I thought about that, then pushed that thought out of my mind. Surely God would want me to be able to explore his creation! I looked up one more time to make sure no one was coming. I pushed the power button, then listened to it softly whirr as the computer and motors started. I pushed another button with an arrow on it, and saw the telescope move slightly to one side. I pushed it again, and held down longer. The telescope moved as long as I held it down. I pushed the arrow button opposite of it, and the telescope moved the other direction. Then I pushed the up arrow button, and the telescope swung upwards. I pushed the down arrow button, and the telescope moved downward.
Not bad. Just like my AutoStar controller. I just wonder what all the other buttons are for.
I went over to the telescope, and tried to look through it. I saw pitch blackness. I went over to the console and pointed it to a star, then looked through it. Nothing. I wondered what was wrong. I floated there for a couple of seconds before I realized what it was. The lens in the front was shut off, of course! Who would let the telescope’s “eye” see when it wasn’t in use? I looked at the console for an un-shutter button. I finally found what looked like one, and pressed it. I went back to the telescope and looked through it. Bingo! A bright star was staring right back at me. I fiddled around with the telescope for a while afterwards, looking at planets, nebula, and the Earth. It really is an amazing thing to look at the earth while you’re in space, especially through a 16” telescope. I could see masses of lights close-up on the dark side of earth, and I could see mountains on the day side of Earth. Eventually, though, I turned the ‘scope off because I knew that I would be looked for if I didn’t soon go back to the main room of the ISS.
I floated to the doorway, and turned and looked one last time at the beautiful instrument. I knew that I wanted to come back again, but I felt a weight fall on my heart. Guilt. I turned around and floated to Lynn and my room. Lynn wasn’t there. I couldn’t tell anyone what I had done. I floated in the far corner of the room, feeling guiltier by the minute. I closed my eyes. I shouldn’t have done it. I knew that, yet I went ahead with it. Sure, it was great while I did it, but that still doesn’t justify the fact that I had done it. I wondered what would happen if someone, at least besides Lynn, found out. Maybe I’d be banned. Or maybe the crew would deem me untrustworthy, and they wouldn’t believe anything I say. That could also put a bad face on Lynn, too. Those were the reasons why I couldn’t tell. But if I didn’t tell, it would be dishonest. God would see me as a liar. Maybe I’ll just tell Lynn, to clear my conscience. Oh God, please let me go back and undo what I did. I rested for a minute, head on my knees. Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep.
“Mel…wake up!”
I opened my eyes. Not again! I was in a dark room, Lynn by my side. She was shaking me. “Wake up, Mel!”
“I am awake,” I told her.
“Yes…but no!” she exclaimed. “You fell asleep! You could die if you do that again!”
I stared at where her face should be. “Lynn, is this happening again?”
“Yeah, it is! But something’s different!”
“What?”
“The door is open. Look outside.”
I turned my head. I saw things whizzing past, and light, but where we were it was pitch black. No light even reflected in the room. “Lynn,” I said fearfully. “What’s going on?”
She put her hand on me. “Something’s happening.”
Chapter 8
I woke up. I was in my sleeping bag, and Lynn was asleep beside me. I turned my head and whispered to her, “Lynn, wake up. Did you dream the same thing I did?”
Lynn groaned and moved. “Mel? Is that you?”
“Yeah.”
“It happened again, except that it was different.”
“Yeah. So I guess it wasn’t just my imagination.”
“Nope.”
I thought for a few seconds, what I had done before I fell asleep filling my mind. “Lynn, who put me in here?”
“Ya know, I have no clue. Must’ve been the same person that put me in here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw you asleep and floating, and I floated over, put my arms around you, and fell asleep, too. Then I dreamed that, that, whatever it was, and woke up here.”
“Huh. Weird.”
“Yeah.”
We remained silent for a few more minutes, reflecting on the strange occurrences that had happened in the last few days of our lives. I undid the straps on my bag, and got dressed. Wait a second, I was in my long johns? Before I had been in a flight suit. Whoever got us undressed and into our johnnies and bed was obviously very good at not waking us up. Lynn looked at me, silently communicating. We moved rather slowly and mechanically. I moved that way because I was still in shock from the dream, and I figured Lynn did the same thing because of that too.
We went out into the kitchen. Everyone was floating around the table, their packets of food in front of them. Chang grinned at us. “The two little ladies finally join us late. For that you two get to share one meal, half and half.”
Lynn and I stared at him. That sounded very familiar. “What…did you just say?” Lynn asked.
Chang looked at her, grinning wider. “You get to share a meal with Mel, half and half.”
Lynn shrugged, looking at me. I nodded. Chang must have been playing a joke. Lynn ripped open her packet of pancakes, spilling some of the little round dried disks. She froze. I froze too, out of fear. “Lynn, did you just do what I thought you did?”
She didn’t answer. The spilt pancakes were floating in the exact same way as yesterday. I then realized something else. When I fell asleep, it was around 11:00 AM Pacific Time. There was absolutely no way I could’ve slept for 20 hours. My watch said 7:00 AM PT. I checked to make sure I was right about what was going through my head.
“Kelly, did we sleep for 20 hours?”
“No! You couldn’t have! Remember? 20 hours ago you and Lynn were woken up by Janet, from that oxygen-deprived sleep.”
I stared at her. “You sure? What about Lynn’s and my bad dreams? We woke up screaming?”
“No, you must have dreamt that. You haven’t screamed since that time you arrived.”
I felt blood rush to my face. I began to feel lightheaded. “Lynn,” I croaked, “can I see you for a minute?”
I grabbed her arm and took her into our room, closing the door behind us. I turned to her, the blood now having drained out of my face, leaving it white. Her eyes were wide, and she was pale, too. “Lynn, did…did…are…time…Star Trek?”
“I…yeah…uh huh!”
I went limp, just floating there. I feebly tried to bring my knees up to my chest in a fetal position, but didn’t have enough strength. I stayed limp. Lynn was stiff, as in shock. I closed my eyes, and asked God why this happened, and what we should do. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I pushed off the ceiling to Lynn. I grabbed her, and she grabbed me. We held tight to each other for a long time. I didn’t want to let go. Finally I dropped back. I began to tip over in a somersault from leaning back. I didn’t care. I went around and around, and began to propel myself around. I couldn’t make sense of the scene around me, and I couldn’t think as long as I was somersaulting. I closed my eyes to continue the sensation.
Lynn touched my shoulder. “Melonie, you okay?”
I stopped. My head was whirling. My eyes couldn’t see anything straight, and Lynn seemed to be jerkily going around and around. I put my head down and began to cry. “Lynn, what if we get stuck in this time cycle? I’ll…I’ll…never get back home! Tat…Tatiana, and Autumn…Russell, oh Russell! And…Mom and…Dad!”
Lynn’s eyes began to water. “Oh, Mel! I never thought of that!”
She didn’t say anything else, but put her hands to her face and began sobbing. I began to think as the tears poured down my face. God had definitely answered my prayer. Now, I had used the telescope, yet hadn’t. Had I? Would it count as a deceit now, or since we had gone back in time, would it count? But yet, I had done it. Even if it wasn’t yet done, I had done it. I shook my head. I still felt guilty, kind of, so maybe that meant that it did count. I stopped crying and asked, “Lynn, can I tell you something? Yesterday…I mean today…I mean before this happened, when you found me in our room asleep in the corner…right before that happened, I had done something I shouldn’t have done.”
Lynn looked at me and sniffled. “What, Mel?”
“I sorta used the telescope in the observatory without asking or telling anyone.”
“Mel! You could have broken something!”
I looked down. “Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t have done it. But it was so tempting!” I looked pleadingly at her. “You know the feeling, of having the stars, and a huge telescope, right at your fingertips! But can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Does that count as a sin, since in a way I haven’t done it yet today? Or does it count, since I did do it, but in the future, a couple hours ago?”
Lynn thought for a minute, then nodded. “It hurts my head to think about it,” here she smiled weakly, “but I think it does. But before you can tell anyone, we first gotta see what they think about this whole time-travel thing.”
“Do we have to tell them?”
“I think we should. Even if they don’t believe us, it’ll be good for us to let the secret out.”
“Okay. I guess. But you get to do the talking. I talked about how we got here, so you can talk about how we’re now in the past.”
Lynn nodded. “All right. I’ll do the talking. You support me.”
We left the room.
Chapter 9
We entered the dining/kitchen area. Everyone stared at our tear-stained, strained faces. Collins had sincerity on his face as he asked, “Something wrong, girls?”
I looked at Lynn, who swallowed before answering. “Uh…yeah. We’re stuck in a time cycle.”
I shook my head at her. “No, this is the first time. We have to have gone through it a couple times before it becomes a cycle. It could go on without repeating this time.”
Collins looked at us quizzically. “What do you mean, ‘time cycle’?”
Lynn looked at me for reassurance, then said, “Well, we’ve already gone through this morning. I remember, ‘cuz Mel and I had a nightmare at the same time this morning.”
Everyone looked at her blankly. She rolled her eyes. “Look, we’re in the past right now. Mel and I are from the future. Uh, about 3 and a half hours in the future.”
Everyone began to laugh. “Ha ha, from the future, that’s a good one!” Janet said. “First there’s the tessering thing, then this time travel thing. What next? You’re aliens?” Erik said. Lynn glared at him. I said to Lynn, “I knew this would happen. They won’t believe anything else we say from now on.”
Collins stated, “Oh, so this isn’t true? It was just a prank?”
“No, no,” I said. “That’s not what I meant at all. I meant that because these crazy things keep happening to Lynn and I, you won’t believe us ‘cuz things like this never happen in real life. But they are happening to her and I.”
Collins just continued finishing his food. “You girls are gonna have to have psycho therapy when you get back on earth. You’re crazy.”
I felt frustrated. “Fine. Believe what you will. But it happened. I hope it happens to you, to all of you, so you believe u—Wait! I can prove it to you!”
Lynn stared at me. “How?”
“The telescope! I know how to use it ‘cuz I used it in the other time!” I turned to the others. “You all know where I’ve been since I got here, right?”
They nodded, so I continued. “Well, before Lynn and I came to the past, I used the telescope. I went to it at about 8:00, which is 10 minutes from now. I stayed there for two and a half hours, observing. Except that I didn’t tell any of you, so I had to learn how to use it myself. I’ve never used anything like it, so I learned it then. And since I learned it in the future, and I’m back in the past, then I can show you what I’ve learned. And that’ll prove to you that I came from the future.”
Surprisingly, Erik was actually listening. “I like it! If you do know how to use it, then we’ll believe you and Lynn about all this wacky time-travel and space-travel stuff. But if you don’t…then you have to accept this was all a dream, and we’ll know you’re lying, in which case you will have to tell the truth about how you got up here in the first place.”
I looked at Lynn and shrugged. She nodded. “Okay. It’s a deal.”
I pushed myself away from the table, breakfast forgotten. When we arrived at the observatory, I automatically looked up at the sky. Yup, it was exactly the same as yesterday. I floated over to the console as everyone crowded into the room to watch. I pointed at the power button and said, “This is the power button.”
Pretty simple. Some of the audience rolled their eyes. I pushed it and listened to the soft whir of the computer turning on. Then I pointed to the un-shutter button and told them what it was. Before I moved the telescope to anything, I began describing the sky to them without even looking up. I could remember where everything was yesterday, and I described the earth, too, without looking at it.
“We’re flying above Asia right now. To the right of Israel is night, to the left is day. There is a thunderstorm swirling above India right now, and it is cloudy over the Middle East. Now I’ll show you things through the telescope.” I paused, thinking how long it took to hold down the buttons for the Orion Nebula.
“If you hold down the left button for about 1 second, then the top one for half a second, the Orion Nebula should be in the eyepiece.” I took a deep breath, then pushed the buttons. My heart started pounding wildly. I breathed a quick prayer to God. Oh Lord, please, oh PLEASE, let the Orion Nebula be in the eyepiece! I floated over to the eyepiece and looked in. Yes! The Nebula was half in and half out. I turned round triumphantly, a grin on my face. “Come and see!” Collins looked through first, then Janet, Kelly, Calvin, Chang, and finally Erik. They all said nothing until Erik was finished.
“Well,” he said, “I guess that you are right. Do you know what any of the other buttons are for, though?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t have time to fiddle with those. Besides, I didn’t want to damage anything.”
He breathed in deep and long, then slowly exhaled it. He turned to the other astronauts. “Well, what do you think? Should we trust them, or should we make ‘em tell the ‘truth’?”
Collins “stepped” forward in the capsule and stared long and hard at Lynn and I. We held his gaze evenly, although I felt embarrassed by it. I looked hard at his eyes. So icy! They were like pale blue ice, hard like steel. Yet, they seemed to be discerning. They were not cruel, but held stern authority like a king’s would hold.
Suddenly, nearly scaring the nerves out of me, he threw back his head and laughed. He had a clear, goodness-filled laugh. Lynn and I looked at each other, totally puzzled at why he was laughing. The astronauts stared at him, bewildered. He finally stopped. “This whole time, the girls have been right! To think that we, educated and much older than two thirteen-year-olds, were the wrong ones! NASA-trained top scientists were wrong, and two junior-highers were right! But imagine the tabloid headlines if this were to get out: ‘Two Girls Appear on ISS; Astronauts Totally Bewildered,’ ‘Aliens Kidnap Girls and Deposit Them on ISS,’ ‘NASA Doesn’t Know How to Handle 13-Year-Olds,’ ‘Two Teens Outwit Astronauts’!”
By this time the rest of us were laughing. I stopped laughing and asked, “So this means that you believe us?”
Collins looked into my eyes apologetically. “Yes, Melonie, I’m choosing to believe you right now, at least. After what you just showed us, we believe. Also, when I was searching your eyes and faces, there wasn’t a trace of deceit. So we believe you and Lynn.”
I grinned. “Good, ‘cuz I couldn’t stand it if—oh great, I just realized something. What if we go through this little cycle again? Then I’ll have to explain everything all over again. What I need is to know some secret about each of you, so that if this happens again I can just tell you your secrets and you’ll believe me.”
Calvin replied, “No. I’ve got a better idea. We tell you some secret password or thing that NASA is using, and that’ll convince us immediately if you tell it to us in the next cycle.”
Kelly shook her head. “No! That is top-secret! We can’t just go telling it to two girls so that they can convince us when we don’t believe! What if they tell someone?”
Lynn and I spoke at the same time. “Don’t worry, we won’t tell!”
Collins looked thoughtful. “I’ve got one, and Kelly, I don’t think they will tell. They’re trustworthy.”
Kelly reluctantly agreed. “Okay, but they have to swear an oath. If it gets out, they will be the first ones NASA seek.”
Collins came over, put a hand on each of our shoulders, and looked us both gravely in the eyes. “Do you solemnly swear, on the Holy Bible and on the United States of America, to never tell a living soul anything that I am about to disclose? Repeat after me if you do: I solemnly swear [we both repeated], on the Holy Bible and on the United States of America [we repeated], to never tell a living soul [repeat] any national secret.”
We finished. After that, he led us out to the main central room. “One national secret is that under Cape Canaveral is a giant military lab/storehouse. NASA and the military are building and stocking up secret weapons that far surpass any technology anywhere else in the world. There are nuclear bomb shields that can be deployed by satellite to prevent bombs, nuke or otherwise, from hitting the U.S. There are secret warplanes and reconnaissance planes being built that are totally invisible in the sky. There is a huge storehouse that houses most of our military vehicles: planes, subs, boats, jeeps, secret machines. If all the military machines above ground were destroyed, there is enough beneath Cape Canaveral to replenish the military thrice, four times as much. We are also building a giant army of robots. These aren’t just the average factory robots; these are highly sophisticated, armed robots. We are at the breaking point of creating artificial intelligence, too. But this giant underground lab is a total secret. Only some astronauts know this, particularly the ones who are working with the military lab. In fact, all the astronauts on board the ISS right now are engaged in a top-secret military project. We were to deploy a secret satellite, and test some new weaponry in space. That is, until the solar flare hit. Now we are concentrating on getting back home.” He paused and looked at us severely. “Everything I have told you is a secret. You are to tell no one, not even your parents. If you do, the United States will be in grave danger. If you tell, you will have to be searched out and executed, to prevent you from telling anyone else. In fact, I will be right back with something to make sure you do not tell.” He left the room with Janet.
Lynn and I stared at each other. Our eyes were wide and our mouths hung open. I shivered, and my heart was pounding. I wondered what other secrets our nation had. I whispered, “Oh, wow. I don’t know what to say.” She nodded. Just then Collins came into the room, carrying two tiny things that were air-sealed in plastic. Janet was carrying two needles and some medical supplies. I drew back, scared to death of the needles. I had always hated shots, and the thought of being stuck with a needle in space in front of everyone scared me. Lynn looked fascinated. She had always liked shots, or at least not minded them. I couldn’t understand why.
“I have here two tiny trackers. Someone will always be keeping track of you, down to what room in what building you’re in. The sound recorder part will be turned on if it hears certain key words relating to what we just talked about. It will send what you are saying to military headquarters, via scrambled satellite waves that are only able to be picked up by the headquarters. If they hear or suspect anything, they can find you. So I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you.”
If they could have, our mouths would have dropped open more. Lynn sputtered, “But…But…everything? Even in private?”
Collins looked very serious as he nodded. He paused, then shook his head and smiled. “No. I was just kidding about the audio part. But the tracker is real. Actually, you two are going to be the first ones to have the trackers implanted in you. If they work, we should be able to contact you at whatever location you are at through this.” He held up a tiny, black round speck along with a little black ball the size of a head of a pin. “The round piece is a wireless receiver that we will inject in your ear. You will be able to hear us if we ever try to contact you. The black ball is a tiny wireless transmitter that will be implanted in your tongue. It is activated either by us calling you on the earpiece, or by you touching your tongue with your pinkie, which will have the tracker in it. Only the tracker can activate it, so there is no danger of it turning on if something else touches your tongue.”
He then turned to Janet, who held the supplies, and took out a needle and primed it. Kelly also primed a needle. He turned to me, and Kelly went to Lynn. Collins said, “We can only inject the tracker with the supplies we have here. As you can see, it is almost as small as a period on the end of a sentence. The injection will not hurt very much, only about as much as a tetanus shot.”
I backed away as he came near. “Are you sure? Don’t you need to contact someone like the president before you do this? I mean, you can’t trust us totally, can you? After all, we could be Russian spies or Korean spies or something like that!” My mind panicked as I tried to think of a way out.
Collins said, “Actually, we have been looking for two people to put these in and try. You two are perfect. You’re young, only teens, so you are probably more trustworthy and honest than adults. Besides, with how you got up here, and by the way you’ve acted the past day or so, we can tell that you are not spies or anybody hostile. Also, if you really were spies or somebody like that, you wouldn’t have said what you just said. You would have been more inquisitive, and jumped at any chance to learn something.” He smiled, trying to make me feel more comfortable.
“You are going to have to go through it. You know about certain things, and now you have to pay a small price of being the first two to try out new technology. The sooner it is done, the sooner you won’t have to worry about it.”
I stopped and held out my left hand. He shook his head and pointed to my right hand. Suddenly I realized something. “Lynn, don’t let it go in your right hand!”
I saw Lynn yank her hand away from Kelly. She looked at me, puzzled and shocked by my tone of voice and pallor. I was deathly white. “What’s wrong, Mel?”
I began hyperventilating, then slowed down my breathing. “Lynn,” I croaked, “we could have almost sold our souls to the devil.”
Chapter 10
Everyone in the room stared at me. Only Lynn’s look was different. Her eyes grew wide, and she dropped her mouth open as she realized it, too. “I can’t believe we almost…But is it the mark?” She turned to Kelly and asked, “Does this have to go on your right hand? Or can it go on your left?”
“Well, we thought most people would prefer to have it on their right. But I guess you could have it in their left.”
“Does it, by any chance, have the number 666 embedded in it anywhere? In or on anything?”
Kelly looked at Collins, who answered Lynn, “No. Nowhere in the programming or anywhere. Not in its name, either.” He looked puzzled as he asked us, “What did you mean, ‘we could have almost sold our souls to the devil’ and ‘the mark’?”
I took a deep breath, ready to answer, but Lynn beat me to it. “Well, Mel and I believe that the Son of God, Jesus, died for what we’ve done wrong and forgave us. He is going to come back, but the seven years right before he does is what the Bible calls the tribulation. During those seven years of tribulation for Christians, there will be a one-world government. Everyone will be required to get a mark, of what sort we don’t know, but you cannot buy or sell anything without it. It has the number 666 somewhere on or in it. The Bible says that if you take the mark, you have sold your soul to the devil and you will go to hell. Mel and I are Christians, and we are determined to not take any mark like that. Also, the mark is going to be put on either your right hand or your forehead. That’s why we wanted to know if it had to be on your right hand, and if it had the number 666 associated with it.”
Eric said, “Well, there’s something new about the girls. We’re learning about them more and more as more and more time goes on. Christians, eh? Well, we’re pretty religious people. Collins is a Mormon, and the rest of us believe in some kind of higher being.” He gave us one of his big grins. “Don’t ya worry, girls, there ain’t nothin’ on those pieces of technology that’s got 666 on it, and it doesn’t have to go on your right hand.”
Lynn and I glanced at each other, still unsure. I asked her, “Well, what do you think? As long as it’s not on our right hand. And they said that there isn’t 666 in it.”
Lynn closed her eyes, saying, “Lord, we don’t want to lose you. And I know you don’t want to lose us. Please let our decision to take them be the right one. Please let us keep our salvation.” She opened her eyes and nodded at the astronauts. I prayed silently, too, in the same theme as Lynn’s.
I felt a small, sharp pain in my left pinkie as my eyes were closed, and opened them, seeing Collins take out the needle. He wrapped a bandage around it, saying, “The tracker is in now. It should heal by tonight, but don’t wash your hands until then. You don’t want it to get wet.” I nodded, and Lynn did, too. I looked at my finger, and thought, I don’t feel any different. I still feel as close to Jesus as I did. I guess it isn’t the mark! Then I thought of something that sobered me. It isn’t the mark, but it could be a precursor to the mark! I sighed, then turned to Lynn.
“Well, how do you feel?”
“No different, Mel. I doubt it’s the mark.”
“Me too. But I thought of something serious.”
“What?”
“What if it’s the precursor to the mark?”
Lynn shook her head. “Well, something’s got to be the precursor. As long as we didn’t take the mark.”
I sighed. “I don’t know. It’s done now. I just hope it was okay that we took it.”
Later that day, we had a meeting in the main room, where the communications screens were located. Janet was sitting at one of the computers, focusing intently at the screen and typing ferociously when Lynn and I walked in. She didn’t pay attention when the others floated in or when Collins started talking.
“I have good news, everyone! Janet, who is so wonderfully focused on her job, is getting close to breaking through the bind that the solar flare put us in. We may have communications ability with Earth by the end of the day.”
I gasped and hugged Lynn. She squeezed the air out of me, shrieking silently. The others started laughing and hugging each other, celebrating the good news.
The Dragon Trilogy: Book 1
Chapter 1
“Lasin, could you please get me some sharliss herb for this stew?”
A slim woman, her red skirt swirling, spun around to face her son. His trim, tall body had attracted many a young lady, and his brown hair was the envy of all the townspeople, most of whom were blonde. He was always ready to help, though he sometimes got impatient with people. “Yes, ma’m,” he replied. “How much would you like?”
The mother responded, “A handful. It will give the stew good flavor.”
Lasin saluted his mother with a smile, and then walked out the door into the