Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) (14 page)

“Yes, but I guess my focus was elsewhere.”

Behind her, at the foot of the stairs, Sam pointed to the double doors in the wall beyond the staircase and asked, “If everything is upstairs, then what’s behind those doors?”

Without looking back, Mara said, “It’s called the fabrication shop—and, no, you can’t go in there, especially after that little stunt you pulled in the laboratory.”

Sam rolled his eyes and mimicked her as he ascended the stairs behind her. He glanced at their Ping, who walked next to him, and said, “I’m beginning to think it was more fun around here without her. What’s the point of visiting other realms if you can’t get your hands dirty? You know, experience things?”

Ping smiled and said, “I don’t think you’re lacking for interesting experiences.”

They took a left at the top of the stairs, passed several closed doors and turned to the right into a short passageway that opened to a large room flanked by three walls of polished dark wooden bookshelves. The fourth wall featured a row of tall vertical windows that opened to the lawn at the back of the house. Clustered in the center of the room atop a massive rug were two burgundy leather sofas facing each other, and four earth-tone cloth-upholstered wing chairs, positioned perpendicular to the sofas, two on each end, also facing each other.

The other Ping waved them toward the furniture but didn’t make a move to sit himself. “I hope you don’t think I’m abandoning you, but I must check on the doctor to see if he needs anything. Then I best whip up something for dinner. Please help yourself to any of the books if you would like to read while you wait. I’ll be back shortly,” he said, turning and leaving the room without waiting for a reply.

Sam walked to the windows while Mara took a chair and Ping sat on the end of the nearest couch.

“People in town think the chasms have stopped appearing and that it has something to do with your presence here. Is that true?” Ping asked.

She nodded. “We were wrong about the Aphotis causing the deterioration of this realm. It was a coincidence. Your counterpart thinks that, when the other Mara was disconnected from the receptacle network, she lost contact with this realm, and her absence brought about the chasms.”

“And your appearance here stabilized things.”

“Apparently. My counterpart created this realm somehow. At least that’s what the other Ping says.”

“You—she—is a progenitor,” Ping said. “Everyone here knows about her and the inception of this realm. A creation myth has even been built up around the event. Amazing, considering it was less than eight years ago.”

“Don’t you think that would have been worth mentioning when we were holographing before I came here?”

“I had not heard of it before we talked. The first inkling we got was a few days ago when Sam overheard people discussing the Progenitor’s Manor. Then we found Abby in the park and had to take care of her. Once she became stabilized, we made discreet inquiries about the progenitor, and that’s when we learned of your counterpart and her role in creating this realm. Quite remarkable, isn’t it? I wonder how she accomplished it.”

Mara leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “She did it with that Chronicle of Cosms down in the lab. It appeared to her in a bank of fog after she entered the receptacle and went into stasis.”

“Does Ping know where it came from?” Ping asked.

It was jarring to hear him call someone else Ping. “No. And I got the impression the other Mara doesn’t know either. It definitely looks related to our Chronicle—the Chronicle of Creation. Did you see the crystals and engraving on the sides of the eyepiece? They are identical.” She tapped the medallion in her pocket through the denim of her jeans.

“How did it work?” Ping asked.

“I’m not sure. I guess it shrunk us down so we could interact with the substance of the samples. There’s no other way to describe it. It was like we were in a world made up of the steam.”

“To alter the nature of a substance, you would have to interact at a molecular or even atomic or subatomic level. Incredible. That’s the third Chronicle we’ve encountered designed to manipulate an element of Reality.”

Sam sauntered over to the couch and flopped down next to Ping.

“That occurred to me,” Mara said. “The Chronicle of Creation alters Consciousness. The Chronicle of Continuity alters Time. And this one, the Chronicle of Cosms, alters Space? Is that correct?”

“It alters your relationship with Space, the context in which you exist in Space. I would have called it the Chronicle of Context,” Ping said.

“Your counterpart said the same thing, but Cosms is what you get when a ten-year-old picks the name,” Mara said.

“Ten-year-old?” Sam asked.

“The other Mara found the Chronicle—the one in the lab—after she went into the receptacle, when she was ten.”

“It might behoove you to get more familiar with the principles associated with this Cosm device. It’s not happenstance you came across it,” Ping said. “Assuming you intend to remain in this realm long enough to investigate further.”

“If I had my druthers, I’d leave now, but I’m not sure this realm would survive long enough for the other Mara to return. That can’t happen for another two weeks, which is how long it takes for the Mara back in Cam’s realm to get a new synthetic body. After that, I’m assuming they would want to reconnect her to the receptacle network. And that means I would have to go.”

Sam narrowed his eyes at her. “Why does the other Mara need a new synthetic body? I thought the doctor said they could fix the one the Aphotis killed.”

Mara glanced at Ping.

“I didn’t tell him what happened. I thought it more appropriate for you to tell him,” he said.

Sam leaned forward. “Tell me what?”

Mara exhaled and slumped back into the soft backing of the chair. Rubbing her face, she took a deep breath and said, “The Aphotis killed my biological body, and the doctors at the repository transitioned me into the synthetic body of my counterpart. She’s now waiting for them to fabricate a new synthetic body for her.”

Sam gave her a vacant look. He tilted his head to the side as if trying to understand what she had said. “You’re one of those robots now?”

Mara’s face reddened. “Yes. I have a synthetic body.”

“And your real one is dead?”

“It’s in the morgue back at the repository.”

“
Dead
.”

“They don’t keep live ones in refrigerated drawers, Sam.”

“I don’t think Mom will like that. What will you tell her?” he asked.

“One problem at a time, Opie. One problem at a time.” She rested her elbow on the arm of the chair and slid her gaze to Ping, hoping he could find something to say to make her feel better.

“Speaking of the Aphotis,” Ping said, “it appears to be floating around as a black mist, scaring the locals. It even attacked us on the way here, and I saw it attack a man near the hotel this morning.”

“A black mist? You mean that inky cloud we saw after Juaquin Prado died at the bank? The one that possessed everyone and caused the shedding back in our realm?” she asked.

“Exactly but, for some reason, it’s unable to possess people here. It attacks and tries to enter their bodies, but it cannot take possession of them,” Ping said.

“People think it’s a swarm of mosquitos spreading malaria,” Sam said. “Well, one of Dad’s patients thought that. It does look like a swarm from a distance.”

“Why did it attack you? Did it recognize you?” Mara asked Ping.

“Me personally? I don’t think so. However, it may have recognized Abby. It directed its aggression at her when it attacked the wagon, but I assumed it was because she was the most vulnerable.”

“But you saw it attack someone this morning. At the hotel? Do you think the Aphotis has a way of tracking Abby?” Mara asked. Her fingernails dug into the arm of the chair. “I can’t let that thing get ahold of her again.”

Ping shook his head. “I saw the man attacked down the street. I don’t think the Aphotis has some sixth sense about her location, or it would have shown up much sooner. She’s been with us for several days.”

Mara stopped clawing at the chair. “Okay. So how did you guys get away from it when it attacked the wagon?”

Ping tilted his head at Sam.

Mara turned to her brother. “What happened?”

“I threw a rock at it, and it exploded,” Sam said.

Mara raised an eyebrow. “What exploded? The rock or the Aphotis?”

“Both I think. I prompted the rock to catch fire after I threw it, so I’m pretty sure that’s what set off the explosion.”

“You prompted a rock?” She turned to Ping, and he nodded. “How does that work?”

“Remember, this realm is composed of thought, and your brother is a prompter, someone who can alter thoughts. In this realm, he appears able to alter Reality much like a progenitor can.”

She looked at Sam and said, “Show me.”

He scanned the room, walked over to a bookshelf and removed a book. Returning, he remained standing and held out the book on the palm of his hand. “The rock looked like this,” he said. The book dissolved into a small cloud of steam, swirled over his hand and compacted into an irregularly shaped ball which solidified into a hard gray lump. A rock.

Mara gasped.

He tossed the rock into the air above them, and it burst into flame. Just below the ceiling it lost momentum and began its descent toward the floor.

“Sam!” Mara yelled.

He held out his hand to catch the falling meteor. Just before it landed, the flaming ball morphed into steam, slammed into Sam’s palm with a burst of cottony vapor that dissipated, revealing the book lying flat on his outstretched hand.

Wide-eyed, Mara stared at her brother. “You prompted that to happen?”

“Yeah. Works like normal, except with things instead of people,” he said.

She pointed at him. “No more fire in the house. And put that book back where you got it.”

While Sam returned the book, she leaned toward Ping and whispered, “I never did anything like that before, turning a book into a stone and back again.”

“Only because you haven’t tried,” he said.

Mara’s gaze followed Sam as he sat on the sofa next to Ping. “Some of us like to show off more than others,” she said.

Sam wiggled his eyebrows at her.

“Are there any other news flashes I should be made aware of?” she asked.

“I think Dad’s a prompter too,” Sam said. “But I’m not sure if he knows it.”

“Please tell me that he’s not lighting rocks on fire,” she said.

“I just said, I’m not sure he knows,” Sam said. “He prompted a patient earlier, and he said something about it being the power of suggestion. He thinks he’s a good doctor, not a prompter.”

“If that’s the case, it might be best to let him continue thinking that,” Ping said. “If this realm is a creation of the progenitor and is influenced by the thoughts of its occupants, altering how these people think could have unintended consequences.”

“You’re telling me not to talk to my dad about being a prompter?” Sam asked. “I don’t think I like that idea. I’ve been looking forward to sharing something we had in common.”

“Why don’t we agree not to discuss it unless he brings it up first?” Mara suggested. “If he wants to talk about it, it’s less likely we would change something and cause a problem.”

“Even if he does,” Ping added, “I would suggest you speak in the same terms that he does. His use of the phrase
power of suggestion
may be his way of expressing the concept of prompting. Just be careful. Making unintended alterations to this realm could be more dangerous than we can imagine.”

When Dr. Lantern entered the study, Mara jumped up from her seat and met him before he reached the seating area. Sliding his arm across her shoulders, he smiled and guided her back to her seat. As he took the wing chair next to hers, he frowned and sniffed the air.

“Do you guys smell something burning?” he asked.

Sam’s face reddened as he smiled at his sister’s glare. Mara shook her head and said, “I don’t think so.”

“I guess we’re safe since you aren’t down in the lab cooking something up,” he said. His expression shifted from lighthearted to serious. “I wanted to talk to you for a minute about Abby.”

“Is she okay?”

“There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with her physically. However, psychologically, she’s suffering profound stress, trauma and guilt, and that has caused her to shut down mentally. It’s her mind’s way of protecting itself. That’s why she was nearly catatonic at the hotel, but she’s becoming more lucid. I think seeing a familiar face—meaning me—has given her something to hold on to. She seems to know me.”

Mara nodded. “We grew up together, and she knew my father—the one in my realm, I mean.”

“Ping—the one downstairs—said you were giving her a sedative. Is she sleeping now?” Mara asked.

“No, that’s why I wanted to talk to you. She’s under the impression that you are dead—that she killed you. When I told her that she was mistaken, she became agitated and burst into tears.” He glanced at Ping and Sam and added, “With all this dragon and possession business, I didn’t know how to help her. I wasn’t sure if she was delusional, mistaken or rationally dealing with a trauma. She’s been through a lot. That I’m sure of.”

Mara’s shot a look at the others on the sofa. “You told him about the dragon and the Aphotis?”

Ping raised a hand and made a calming gesture. “Abby told him. We explained enough so that your father would know that she wasn’t seeing things.”

Looking back at her father, she was lost for words. Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t string together a sentence. “Ah, it’s true. In a way, I guess.”

Dr. Lantern looked confused. “What’s true? That Abby is delusional or what she said is true?”

“What she said. While she was possessed by the Aphotis, she killed my biological body, after I had been transitioned into the synthetic body of your daughter—of the Mara that is your daughter in this realm.”

“How is that possible?” he asked.

“The Aphotis attacked her as well, before attacking me. They had not yet transported her synthetic body back to her repository when I became mortally wounded, and the doctors decided to transition me into her body. After that, the Aphotis stole and murdered my biological body.”