The Jovian Legacy (35 page)
Authors: Lilla Nicholas-Holt
He
knelt in stunned silence.
Everything had
failed. Jack’s fast work at the Research Centre barely an hour
ago had been to find the code to network his team’s devices to
his transmitter. On his instructions his crew were to forcibly take
each girl by the hand, and, via their electronic devices that were
linked to his transmitter Jack would have pushed the Lucre Boxes
together at the precise moment, which would have granted the girls
and his helpers instant travel to Earth, and away from all of this.
But
his plan had failed. He had failed.
Jack
completely lost it, yelling out at the top of his lungs. His heart
was pounding and sweat poured down his face. He knew what loss
really felt like now.
“This
can’t be happening, this just can’t be happening!”
Kneeling and heavy with grief,
Jack
lifted his head and saw the girls lying like discarded pieces of
property. He crawled towards them amidst the deafening jubilation as
the people of Jovian celebrated the glory of their new creation and
ruler.
No-one cared about his girls now.
They’d served their purpose. He, Megan, Sobek, Ben and Nancy
had loved and reared Megan’s twenty-four clones, ultimately and
solely to become used and left empty, for the continuation of life on
Jovian.
Jack
was an emotional mess as he reached Chione, her eyes empty. Her
spirit had left her. Jack gazed across at the others, who also lay
lifeless on the hard ground. Jack sobbed so hard that his heart
physically hurt, and even painful for him to breath. He didn’t
know what to do next. He knew he couldn
’
t
leave them here; he still had to get them home. He held Chione in
his arms while he pushed his Lucre Boxes together, and in an instant
they were back in Jack
’
s
house in New Zealand.
There
was no sign of Megan or his parents, so Jack had to manage on his
own. He gently placed Chione on a bed and covered her up with a
blanket. He then used his boxes to fetch the others. One by one he
brought the girls back to where they ought to be: home. Jack had to
make sure they were warm as he knew they had to acclimatise to the
much cooler temperature given the season. As he pulled up a blanket
over Neema, Megan, Ben, and Nancy came into the room. They all
looked questioningly at Jack. Megan paused, then rushed over to
Neema.
“
Jack?
..”
Megan began, searching his face for answers.
Jack took hold of a distressed Megan
and sat her down with his parents, giving them a detailed account of
everything that had just happened.
“
I
promised not to come back empty-handed, but I’d intended to
bring back our girls like they used to be and not like this,
”
he apologised, looking utterly shattered.
Megan broke down and wailed into his
arms while he cried again on the inside, sadness swallowing them up
like the great hands of death.
Chapter 29
J
ack
severed all contact with Jovian and tried to re-establish a normal
life with his family. It
was a very difficult time for everyone as they not only had to tend
to the needs of their incapacitated girls (who required fulltime
care) but they also had to keep the girls
’
existence to themselves. Jack knew he wouldn’t be able to
explain to the nation how twenty-four identical young women even
existed, let alone becoming debilitated all at the same time. There
would be an instantaneous public awareness, and most likely a
national inquiry. The family would be made into a freak show. That
was the last thing Jack wanted. It was up to him and his father to
keep their family safely away from any media hype.
It
was an expensive mission to turn his house into a mini hospital
equipped with life-saving apparatus to feed the girls intravenously,
and it was heartbreaking for the family to see them subsisting like
this. It was bittersweet that they were able to afford it thanks to
Jack’s Egyptian remuneration funds that he’d earned from
the GE project. But it wasn’t how it was meant to be.
Over the following weeks Jack and Megan
became increasingly alienated from one another, as Megan spent every
waking moment tending to the needs of her clones, and sometimes
sleeping alongside them.
Jack grabbed himself a can of Maverick
and went outside. He sat on a benchseat beside the puriri tree,
looking up at the starry night. He thought about Jovian. It was
hard to believe that only a short time ago they’d been living
up there in that fantastically different world, a world that had
given them so much joy and life fulfilment, then had been taken away
in an instant. His father strolled over, joining him on the
benchseat. They sat there together, both gazing up at the night sky
in silent unification.
When
they came back inside, Megan and Nancy had gone to bed. Not yet
ready for sleep himself, Jack switched on the TV and flicked randomly
through the channels, mulling over the events of the last few months.
As he settled down on the couch he noticed a colourful light shining
through the doors of the cabinet where he’d put away the Lucre
Boxes. He opened the doors and the boxes showed the symbols again
with rays of colour oscillating around them.
He immediately
thought the Jovian hierarchy was trying to reach him and force him
back to Jovian. He slammed the doors shut and backed away from the
cabinet. Alarmingly he felt a strong pull towards the cabinet again
and tried to fight it, but the more he fought against it the more
intense the draw became, overwhelming him. His hands involuntarily
reached out and held onto the boxes, jamming them together. Jack
felt the gravitational pull and knew exactly where he was heading.
He could do nothing but brace himself to face the hierarchy of
Jovian, fearful about what they had in store for him.
As
he solidified he found himself in a dark place. Out of the darkness
came a familiar face: Sobek. Jack gave her a quick hug and asked her
if she was alright, but wondered why she had been sent and not Timos
or the authorities. He was certainly relieved, however, that it
was
her.
“Take
me to your home,” she said with a sense of urgency. Jack
smiled when he heard her eloquent Egyptian accent again.
“Okay,
let’s go,” he answered without question, realising she
was the one who had pulled him in. He knew that Megan would be
stoked when she saw her.
Once
back in the house Jack asked Sobek to wait in the lounge by the fire,
the embers of which were still glowing. He gently woke Megan out of
her deep slumber, telling her there was someone here to see her,
someone very special. A sleepy Megan threw her bathrobe on and came
out to see who it was, feeling annoyed that Jack had woken her and
thought it was kind of rude that someone would turn up to see her in
the middle of the night. As she ambled into the lounge her
disgruntled thoughts soon dispersed when she saw who it was.
“Sobek!” she screamed in
delight, wrapping her arms around her special friend. They hugged
each other tightly. “I thought I’d never see you again.
You don’t know how much I’ve missed you!”
“Me
too. Megan, I know about the girls,” Sobek stated, straight to
the point.
Megan’s
expression changed. “I’ll take you to see them,”
she replied, and turned to go into the girls’ rooms.
Sobek
caught her by the hand. “I can help them,” she declared.
Megan and Jack looked at each other, puzzled. Jack felt his heart
skip a beat.
“You
can help them?” Megan questioned.
“I
can help them,” Sobek repeated, smiling at both of them. Jack
noticed something different about Sobek’s demeanour. She
carried a lovely sereneness, but with a look of finality in her eyes.
They
showed Sobek the girls’ individual ‘hospital’
rooms. Without wasting time Sobek went into Shani’s room and
kissed her gently on the cheek. With her left hand she placed her
fingers over each of Shani’s eyelids and looked skyward, her
other hand raised. Two rays of luminous green light emitted from
Sobek’s eyes, shot through the window and into the night sky.
Sobek started chanting in beautiful Egyptian. She chanted in a form
of song which continued for about three minutes. When she had
finished with Shani, she went straight into Sabah’s room and
repeated the process, then Jaqi’s room, Layla’s, Hasina’s
and Hathor’s rooms, Cecile’s, Neema’s and
Claudine’s rooms, and so on until she’d rejuvenated the
energy and lifeblood of all of the girls. Megan’s beautiful
young clones started to show recognition and life.
Jack
noticed that Sobek was becoming weak and went over to her side just
as she collapsed. He caught her and laid her down gently.
She
looked at Jack and spoke softly. “Our girls are now safe, the
Sphinx has expired; her energy has been transmitted back to the
girls. The Sphinx is not a threat to you or your people anymore.
Jovian will now perish.”
Sobek smiled up at
Jack and Megan as she faded away, her body becoming still.
“
Oh
my God! Sobek!
”
Megan cried as she bent over her truly amazing, selfless friend.
Jack
comforted her.
“
She
did it for our girls,
”
he said, his heart heavy.
As the girls slowly became healthy and
whole, Megan, Jack, Ben, and Nancy spent the rest of the night and
into the morning welcoming them back, loving them, but at the same
time mourning the loss of Sobek.
They
bade their farewell to Sobek in a private funeral and laid her to
rest beneath the puriri tree. The very next day Jack lit a fire at
the back of the house and the family had a ceremonious burning of the
Lucre Boxes.
“
Thank
you, Nick, for the birthday present that would bring me great
discovery. And, my good mate, it sure as hell did!
”
Jack saluted.
After a month of family time and
monitoring their health, Jack, Megan, Ben and Nancy knew it was time
to introduce the girls to their own world.
And
what an overnight, international sensation they were.
They were the legacy of Jovian.
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