The Jovian Legacy (17 page)

“I’m
sure your lovely cousin will explain,” Timos gloats.

“Jack,”
Megan begins, “they intend to clone me…over and over...”
Her voice trails off.

Jack
feels his blood boil.
“You
maggot!” he shouts at Timos. “Let her go! Who the hell
are
you?
What
the hell are you?”

“Just
a med student who knows his stuff,” Timos proudly states. “By
the way, I’m not alone in this. Your friendly visitors
Tutankhaten and Tutankhamen front our organisation. We have a large
team of highly skilled scientific medical intellectuals who will be
performing the five-year cloning program.”

“Five
years?” Jack cries.

“Why
me?” Megan protests.

“You
are of superior stock my dear,” Timos announces emphatically.
“The Jovian scientists who cloned you in the first instance did
a brilliant job, and it has led the way for our team to carry out our
mission - to create our new ruler.”

“What?
With a whole lot of minnie mees?” Megan angrily asks, though at
the same time thinks it a little humorous, even a compliment, to be
referred to as ‘superior stock’.

Timos
observes her expression. “I’m so pleased you are finally
thawing out my dear. After all, we won’t be needing to do it
the old-fashioned way, with frozen eggs, now will we?”

Jack
yells without thinking, “You leave her eggs alone!” He
glances sharply at Megan who had uttered a stifled laugh, but then
gives him a look that shows a great deal of love.

Megan wants her Jack back so badly, and
she wants to go home.

Jack also wants his old self back. He
approaches her and holds out his arms. With some hesitation Megan
welcomes his embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck, even though
to her at that moment it is like hugging a much younger brother.

Jack
found himself back in the restricted room where he worked at the
research centre.
“Oh
cripes, my time ran out!”

How
the hell am I going to get Megs back now?
he frantically wondered.

He
sat in the room until late, his whole being filled with dread. Jack
fell asleep right there at his computer desk, woken by a colleague
arriving for work the next morning.

“Jack
Dunlop. What? Did you sleep here?” his colleague asked,
surprised. Jack merely looked at his workmate, forlorn and
dishevelled.

“Go
home Jack,” he told him. “You’re not going to be of
any use to us in this state, are you? By the looks of it you need a
thoroughly good sleep. Go home, Son.”

That’s
the second time in as many hours I’ve been called ‘Son’,
thought a disgruntled Jack, but
did as he was told.

I
t
proved to be
one of the most serious crimes that the
Government of Thebes had encountered. The disappearance of a person,
especially a newcomer such as Megan, was taken very seriously indeed.
Within a few days Megan had become a household name. A huge
spherically-shaped image of her, ten stories high, was cast over
office buildings in the middle of the city. It that showed a
three-dimensional image of Megan’s smiling face, along with
wording beneath in English and Egyptian, giving details of Megan’s
circumstances. Everyone seemed genuinely concerned for her
well-being. Strangers approached Jack and his family in the street,
offering their help. People of all ages came knocking on their door
offering support. His work friends that called in on him were
especially supportive, although one of them said he looked like a
hairy stick insect. At least it made Jack lighten up a little.
No-one else was able to cheer him up.

The
Thebes government had pulled out all the stops to locate Megan. They
knew the secret organisation well, and knew what it was capable of
doing.

Chapter 11

M
egan
had not felt so scared and lonely in all her life. She had
sacrificed her family in New Zealand to begin a new life on a
different planet with Jack and his parents, and couldn’t
believe that she was now in a completely different environment again.
An alien environment. All she wanted to do was to go home, back in
her mother’s arms, safe and sound. As reality set in Megan
began to sob. But she knew she had to be strong, and felt better
after a good cry.

Maybe
this whole thing is a dream and I’ll wake up in my own bed
again,
she thought
optimistically.

She
was being held in some kind of clinical building with plain white
walls and ceilings, the starkness broken only by a deep red colour
around the architraves and skirtings. The décor was
consistent right throughout the entire building. Vast corridors went
on endlessly, with smaller passages branching off them.

Megan
was escorted by Sobek into a room and was asked to undress and put on
a hospital gown.

She
was about to object when Sobek said, “Don’t be afraid.
You will not be harmed. The doctors merely want to run some tests.”

“How
can you calmly stand there and say that? Even
I
know it’s illegal to be
doing anything medically to me against my will. They have no right!
Keep them away from me!” Megan protested, upset. Sobek touched
Megan at the base of her neck and Megan felt drowsy, nearly asleep.
She guided Megan to a bed.

“I’m
sorry,” Sobek apologised as she began to undress her and put
the gown on her. She was genuinely sorry for Megan. She pressed a
red square button by the door and left. Her duty was done; she had
no participation in the rest of the procedure.

Timos
came in with five doctors and a nurse. One of the doctors pressed a
button and Megan’s bed glided into a long transparent chamber.
A white mist sprayed into the chamber and enveloped Megan, with rays
of colour travelling up and down her body like iridescent hula hoops.
She was kept in the chamber for six days, her sustenance being
dispensed through a breathing apparatus. When the procedure was
completed, Megan was taken into another part of the building and
cared for by Sobek until she awoke. Megan had no idea that she had
been asleep for six days and thought she was still in the throes of
contesting her freedom, when Sobek placed a tray of refreshments
beside her.

Megan
sat bolt upright. “Sobek, I’m not wearing that gown.
Leave me alone!” Sobek handed her the hot drink, which Megan
thought tasted absolutely delicious, calming her down instantly. She
suddenly felt ravenous. Sobek sat the tray of food on her lap, and
Megan ate hungrily amidst groans of appreciation.

“I
have to hand it to you people,” Megan softened. “Your
food is incredibly delectable!”

Sobek
smiled back. “I’m glad you like it,” she said.
Somehow, in a bizarre kind of way, Megan felt she had a friend that
she could trust and confide in, even though she wasn’t supposed
to. Sobek was with ‘them’, and was also Timos’s
sister.

A
brighter Megan finished her meal and washed her hands. As warm soapy
water sprayed onto her hands, Megan asked, “What’s going
to happen to me, Sobek?”

Sobek
cleared away the tray. In her eloquent and articulate voice she
explained, “They have already commenced the procedure. You
have been unconscious for almost a week.” Her tone was sincere.
Megan was dumbstruck.

“You
mean to tell me that these…these monsters have already
tampered with my body?” Megan began to tremble. Sobek looked
like she genuinely felt sorry for Megan, and touched her hand.

Megan
immediately felt calm again. She sat down on the bed and sighed.
“Can I go home now? Please?”

“Megan,”
Sobek explained with empathy. “Our organisation has commenced
the procedure of cloning you, and it intends to monitor progress over
the next five years. I do not morally agree with what they are
doing, but I am not at liberty to release you. I have been assigned
to take care of your personal welfare, but I am unable to help you
return to your family.”

With
an anguished expression Megan stared at her, then blankly at the
wall, feeling completely and utterly helpless. Sobek looked
saddened.

Over
the next few weeks Megan was submitted to various medical procedures
by the organisation, while she and Sobek began to develop a
friendship.

During
the evening, after Megan had eaten, she thought she’d go for a
walk along the building’s vast corridors. She had walked for a
while before passing an ominous looking doorway. Curious, she
slipped inside and quickly and quietly shut the door behind her. She
couldn’t believe her eyes. The room was filled with
oval-shaped transparent cylinders, and inside each cylinder floated a
foetus suspended in liquid and joined to an umbilical cord attached
to the ceiling of it. Bizzarely it felt like she was looking inside
a womb, her womb, as Megan knew these must be her clones. There were
dozens of them. A shiver ran up her spine as she approached one of
the cylinders. The foetus was curled up like a snail. At that
moment one of its little, not-yet-properly-formed hands moved. Megan
found it incredible to think that these were not an elaborate
creation of life-like dolls; they actually were human beings.

Megan
beings!
She was absolutely gobsmacked. Below the foetus was
Egyptian wording, along with several symbols, which, she knew,
interpreted to Clone 23. Megan surveyed the room again.

“This
is just craziness!” she said out loud.

Chapter 12

J
ack
had lost ten kilos and was the shadow of the man he once was. He’d
returned to work where he went through the motions of his duties.
Most of the time he focused on trying to work out how he could get
back to Megan without going back in time. If only he had kept his
Lucre Box. He cursed his father for secretly putting it in the
garage sale.

Then
he had an idea. It was a long shot, but it could work.

He
drove home, went straight to Megan’s bedroom and picked up her
Lucre Box. He lifted the lid and looked inside. It was lined with
the same red felt fabric as his had been. He placed the box in his
carry bag and drove back to the Thebes Federation of Science, swiped
his entry card and locked the door behind him.

Jack
sat down at his computer, placed the transmitter at the base of his
neck, and quickly typed in a date and a duration of time of only five
minutes. Within moments he was back at his old house again on his
tenth birthday, when Nick Findlay had given him his Lucre Box. He
found himself sitting on his bed and went over to the chest of
drawers where he’d left his Lucre Box. He then held onto the
box tightly and waited. In a couple of minutes he was back in his
computer room. Jack hoped and prayed that his plan had worked. He
looked down to see his box still in his hands.

“Yes!
I did it!” he cried, “I did it!!”

He
then wondered if his next hunch was going to prove correct. On his
worktable he placed his box beside Megan’s, and, with bated
breath he eased them close together though not touching. He was
right. Her box was so shaped that it formed one half of his box, his
one shaped in the opposite fashion, so they fitted perfectly
together. Jack was so excited that he started moving his hips around
in a queer way. (He never really knew how to dance.) There was
something else he noticed. When he pushed the two Lucre Boxes close
together they formed an Egyptian symbol. He hadn’t picked up
the language as quickly as Megan had, and had to refer to his
Egyptian Dictionary tablet. After a while, Jack deciphered the
symbol.

Soul
mates.

A
shrill of excitement shot through him. “Awesome!”

“We’re
meant to be together after all. We’re meant to be!” he
repeated, dancing again.

His
little discovery put him at ease, a feeling that had become alien to
him over the last few weeks, ever since Megan had disappeared. It
was like he knew that they’d be together again soon. He felt
sure of it now, even though there was no way they could ever get
around this cousin thing.

Jack
became aware of his poor state of health and appearance, so he began
to pull himself together. After all, he couldn’t let Megan see
him like this. With Jack’s state of mind on the mend, things
started to fall into place. In a few weeks Jack gained his weight
back to his normal self and his skin developed a healthier colour
from better eating. Jovian food was especially healthy and tasty, so
it wasn’t a particularly hard thing to achieve.

Now
it was only a matter of time.

He
waited until he was fully prepared for his next venture. The plan
was to reach Megan and bring her back with him. Jack felt reasonably
sure of how he’d get to her, but wasn’t totally confident
about the return. In fact, he didn’t have any idea of how he
would get back to Thebes let alone bring Megan back with him. If he
was able to travel with the boxes joined together then it could work,
but there was no guarantee.