[27/Oct/2018: Significant addition to first scene.
Thank you Jorkam for the idea!]

Day Seven ∞ Thursday morning

MICKMI SLEPT FITFULLY. A faint echo swelled in her ears, the memory of being startled awake—a time long ago and far away. The alarm switched to a steady beeping.

"Hull breach, Mic Wamba."

Her heart jumped on seeing the vessel's intrinsic intelligence on the holoscreen. The motherly face looked serious. Hull breach? "Amaltea, where?"

"Section eighteen."

That was beside the control cabin. She jumped from the bunk. "How did it happen?" she said as she ran to the airlock control room.

"Stress fracture of the outer skin." Amaltea's voice followed her along the communications strip in the ceiling. "Internal atmospheric pressure decreasing two percent per minute."

Perturbed, she paused at the emergency rack. She had only received her upgraded vessel on her eighth yearday a few weeks ago, and it was already falling apart? If she survived this, she intended to give her Grand Preceptor a piece of her mind.

"Listen to the breath of wind," she reminded herself, taking a deep breath. She grabbed the clear helmet from one of the astrosuits and placed it over her head. Be still and hear...

A sizzle made her look down. Her sinnesband had sealed the helmet to her neck and formed a pseudo suit around her small frame, leaving her hands free. The left half of the helmet's visual interface activated, displaying <<Life support: 30 min. normal usage>> in green.

Here is no danger... here is no fear. She better keep her breathing calm if she wanted to avoid putting on a full suit.

A jog through the corridor took her to the heart of the vessel. As she entered the storeroom, several vertical cabinets flipped open and exposed their contents. Metal rods. Her interface confirmed their constitutions as steel, osmium, iridium, tungsten, titanium, potassium, and the non-metallic carbon.

I better take a lot of them. She had no idea how big the crack was and she did not want to make several trips. Looking around, she found a disposal bin to put the rods in. She took several of each until it could hold no more. She regretted that as she struggled to lift the bin from the floor. The load turned the simple walk to the fore into a long, laborious affair.

A constant hiss of air escaping just outside the control cabin brought her to a thankful halt. She lowered the bin to the floor and peered up, catching her breath. There it was, the culprit: a traverse crack, wide as her arm span.

"Amaltea, what's the status?"

Yellow text appeared on the helmet display, <<Life support: 13 min. normal usage>>.

Mickmi tried to dismiss the prick of fear and slowed her breathing to lower than normal. Why is Amaltea silent? The atmospheric pressure must have dropped twenty percent by now. She swallowed. No need to fear, no need for fear...

She had to act. She had never seen a real hull breach before, nor attempted such repairs. Taking a bar of titanium and iridium with each hand, she focused. As soon as her sinnesband issued the reparations protocol, several service vents near the ceiling opened to let out streams of smoke, like clouds. They descended and billowed around her and the rods with intent. The rods started to shrink as if melting in her hands until they disappeared.

She grabbed four more to hold up and watched closely, curious. She knew in theory what the vessel's Nanites were doing, but she had never seen them in action in a real-life emergency. This was her opportunity. She mind-directed her internal visual interface to magnify. And magnify. And magnify again.

She frowned when she still could not see anything but thickening smoke. "How much magnification do I need to see the Nanites work?"

The magnification level jumped as green text responded <<At least x40>>.

"Wow... they're small."

She could see the activity now. Dark specks approached the bars in swarms of hundreds of thousands at a time to devour the metal.

"Closer!"

Green text scrolled into view.

<<Maximum magnification available: x40>>

<<Switching modes>>

<<Nanocameras accessed. Interlacing video signals>>

A third of the helmet's visual interface zoomed in on the potassium rod in her hand. It was now the size of a pitted wall crowded with limbless nanobots, each taking a bite and zipping off. Her view piggybacked one swarm of Nanites' flight up to the damaged hull in a hive-minded rally to weld bites of metal into place. Each bit was too tiny to make a difference. But the Nanites came in the trillions. In less than five minutes, the breach was sealed and she still had nine minutes of oxygen left in her helmet and five rods in the bin.

Relieved, she sank down beside the bin.

"Hull breach repair successful. Atmospheric pressure restored. Congratulations, Mic Wamba. You have passed the simulated emergency test. Had you failed, my skin would have self-healed before reaching critical pressure."

"Amaltea... you mean, you created the emergency yourself and left me high and dry?" She puffed as she mentally commanded the sinnesband to retract the pseudo-suit and release the helmet. "And now you tell me it was just a test?"

The sudden anger at being tricked into a test replayed in Mickmi's mind, throwing her into another time. Scenes raced by her. Glimpses of unfocused faces that seemed vaguely familiar—recent faces that she knew she should know but could not remember. They distorted in distress as the scenes grew brighter and more convoluted and disturbing with the shadows of two darkened figures hovering over all—until she could not take it any longer, and awoke with a low cry.

She sat up with chest heaving, staring into the darkened room, with a sliver of light slipping past the edge of the curtain cutting across her nose. She rubbed her face as she drew deep breaths, calming herself.

What was that dream? A memory? She mentally reached for it but it flitted away like a butterfly of smoke, fading. She sighed, disappointed, then stilled herself, probing with all her senses.

She sensed presences that did not belong.

She got up quietly, skirting Danny's feet on the floor next to the foot of her bed and left the room. Her new dress glowed dimly as she stood on the balcony, surveying the floodlit lawn below her. Then she stared beyond the light, expanding her sphere of perception.

Whoever had been looking for her, had returned. But the threat of their presence had already faded. Instead she sensed another presence she recalled picking up on before: a familiar presence that gave her a level of assurance that all was well—for now. She could not see it and felt no need to seek it out, so she drew a few deep breaths of the warm night air and returned to bed.

∞

The first thing Danny did when he woke up beside the empty bed was to go out on the balcony to look for Mickmi. She wasn't exercising at her usual spot this time, but before he could start worrying she appeared from the side of the house, jogging in sneakers inside the perimeter of the yard. He lifted a brow as he followed her smoothly skirting the new flower bed, then continuing along the tree line to the other side of the house at a steady pace, seemingly without effort.

Then he went downstairs to the kitchen doorway and looked in. Mother was there, busying herself with her usual morning routine, and he watched her for a minute. Reassured that she was still okay after last night's encounter, he returned upstairs to get himself ready.

He went outside afterward, and Mickmi stopped in the middle of a barefooted stretch and turned to him as he approached. "Hey," he said, halting at a respectable distance which he'd rather close completely.

"Daniel." Her smile warmed his heart. Her neck and chest were glistening slightly with perspiration, and she was breathing deeply.

"I didn't know you run too."

"Aye. I feel strong enough now."

He cast his eyes around the perimeter of the front yard. "How many laps?"

"Ten."

"Including the back? Wow. I'm gonna have to take up running again to keep up with you." He chuckled.

She smiled with him for a moment, then became serious as she gazed past him.

"What is it?" he asked, glancing around. "Where's Zorro?"

She looked back at him, her eyes dark green. "Your mother..."

"Don't worry about her—"

"Daniel," she said quietly. "She has every right to be suspicious of me. I am not a criminal, but I may just as well be one. I put your family at risk."

"Mickmi, I told you—"

She stepped toward him and put a hand on his arm. "They were here again."

"What?"

"Come with me." She led the way to the side of the house and stopped to look at the electrical cable box, then pointed at the ground in front of her. His stomach sank to a knot when he saw the imprint of half a shoe on the edge of the flower bed along the wall. "The same two persons who were here two nights ago," she said.

Two? A chill attacked his nape and ran down his arms. He hadn't known there were actually two persons watching them, just that there would be people looking for Mickmi.

"They disconnected the electricity." She pointed to the cable. "Twice."

His head snapped around to look at her. "Disconnected? And why twice?" He frowned—he was starting to get a headache now and his chest was pounding.

She gazed at him with streaks of yellow before turning back to study the cable. "They were here to install... devices-"

His eyes widened.

"—to listen in on us. But...," she looked back at him, "they were stopped."

The air escaped him with a puff. "Stopped? By—?"

"You know who..."

Selina! He rubbed his face for a moment. After he'd practically kicked her out of the house, she'd stuck around and prevented them from breaking in and installing bugs—fulfilling her duty of protecting Mickmi, and by extension protecting him and his family as well. "Mickmi... That was—"

She placed her fingers over his mouth and shook her head. "Tell me not. I know there is a connection. But I must remember on my own." She lifted her hands to cradle his head and seconds later the warmth caused the pounding headache to evaporate, and also release the knot in his stomach. She studied him sadly. "They did something else. Come."

She led the way to the kennel and opened the door. Zorro moved the tip of his tail and got up with difficulty, with a guttural whine. He stood there inside the kennel with head and tail hanging, making no attempt to come outside.

Danny frowned in worry. "What's wrong with Zorro?" He got inside and crouched beside the dog, checking its eyes and mouth, feeling its body.

"Tranquilizer."

"What?"

"To keep him from waking us up."

He clamped his jaw as he turned his head to stare at her.

"Bring him out. He is slow to recover."

Danny took Zorro by the collar and got him to move step by unsteady step outside. Then he let go, standing back as Mickmi kneeled beside the dog and placed her hands below the base of its neck and on its back. He watched her close her eyes to channel her healing energy into the dog, but then he couldn't stand still any longer. He started pacing back and forth with the mounting anger, pausing a moment on the return leg to check on the progress before making another round. He breathed a sigh of relief when Zorro met him with a bark after the next lap, and he stooped to give the dog a long, fond rub.

He met Mickmi's gaze as she rose to her feet. "This has got to stop." His brow was furrowed. "They practically invaded my home! They've tampered with the electricity and hurt my dog too? I'm gonna have to report this to—" He stopped as he saw Mickmi shake her head seriously. "I can't..." He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head slowly. "I can't expose you to investigation—I can't let Mom and Gina know... Plus these people are probably official..." He straightened himself, meeting her gaze again. "But I can't just let them get away with it—I've got to protect my family... and you."

"Your family is protected because I am protected."

Danny exhaled through his teeth. "I don't know if that's enough..."

She stepped toward him and studied him with concern. "You know what the best thing for me to do is. It is the best thing for your family."

He shook his head a long time, his gaze locked with hers. "No, Mickmi. I don't consider that an option. Don't let them force you into something you don't wanna do." His brow contracted as he drew a long breath. "Don't let me... force you into something you don't wanna do."

Her face softened and she came right up to him, putting her cheek next to his. "I know that is difficult for you to say, Daniel." She paused, absorbing his warmth. "I stay... For now, I shall stay."

Danny closed his eyes and sighed, wrapping his arms around her.

∞

Lora got off the bike and surveyed the area as Jagg tugged it onto its stand. She looked through the fence at eight white metal legs surrounding a center column, then followed the legs to the very top where there was a large globe with a walkway encircling it.

"Why are we here?"

Jagg straightened himself, studying her while rubbing the top of his shoulder blade that pained him from last night's impact with the sidewalk. He grabbed hold of the chain link fence and shook it a little. "You 'fraid of heights?"

"No."

He looked her down and up, then said, "Then follow me."

He started climbing the fence. When he threw his leg over the other side he looked back at Lora as she watched him. "Come on." He dropped himself to the ground then jogged over to climb one of the laddered legs.

Once Lora started to move, she did not hesitate. She got to the top of the fence and jumped down on the other side, then followed Jagg as he made his way farther and farther up the water tower. She did not take his hand as she climbed over the railing to the walkway and stood up, meeting his gaze. Then she turned to look at the view—and smiled. They were over five stories up; the atmosphere was different here, so removed from everything, with a peaceful silence that reminded her of the weeks spent in solitude on her vessel.

Jagg watched her with a glint in his eye as a sudden breeze lifted the ends of her hair. He noticed that she didn't hold onto the railing for dear life: instead she was relaxed, lifting her hands with her palms sideways and outward as if to say, look at the wonderful view. He nodded to himself and slid down to sit on the ledge with his legs hanging over the edge, leaning a shoulder against a banister, and turned his gaze to the expansive view over the green city.

Lora followed suit and leaning against the next banister. They sat like that in silence for a long while, taking in the view. Eventually Jagg started to speak. "I used to come up here as a kid—just to get away... So I could think." He fell silent again. He didn't add that he'd never brought anyone up here with him before.

She glanced at him and turned back to the view, waiting, drawing on the peacefulness it projected upon her. For a moment, it felt like it was actually watching her.

"Last night, you... said some things...," he said, staring over the landscape. "I've been thinking... about it all night. I would've thought you were just messing with me, except... You remember what happened?"

"I fainted."

"Yeah, but what happened when you fainted?" He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

"I know not."

"Your choker—that thing around your neck—it threw me across the street."

"Auto protection."

"Riight." Jagg contemplated for a moment. "Where'd ya get something like that?"

Lora did not answer immediately. He waited while staring at a radio tower in the distance.

"Not from this planet," she said in a low voice.

He spun his head. "Bullshit." He eyed her suspiciously but her body language provided him with no hint to doubt her. Tentative, he lifted his eyebrows as he blew a long stream of air. So he hadn't imagined what he heard last night. He turned to her, lifting one foot onto the ledge. "Are you messing with me?"

She met his gaze, her face still. "I lie not."

"'Not from this planet', huh?" He drew a long breath—and a moment later his eyes widened. 'Not from this planet' meant she was from a different planet: she was an alien. He jumped up and started walking away along the metal ledge before it dawned on him and he spun around. "Shit! You're it! You're the cover-up, aren't you?"

Lora shook her head. "I know not what you mean."

Jagg returned, looking down at her with intense excitement. "Man, it was all over the news. What happened in the dam last week and the stories that keep changing... That can only mean a government cover-up. They don't want anyone to know that a freaking spaceship crash-landed in the dam. And you came in that ship, didn't you?"

"I—" She was about to say that she was not the one to end up in the lake, but stopped herself. What did it matter whether or not she had? It might as well have been her since she was the only survivor. "It was I."

Jagg stared at her, then spun around and started pacing again. He went halfway around the water tank and back again and stopped, drawing a long breath. The implication was bigger than he could've imagined. It was mind-boggling. But he had a different focus. "What else can you do with that choker?"

"Many things."

"Like?"

"You already know two."

"Riight."

She turned back to the view.

Jagg was staring at her in reluctant admiration, his mind racing a hundred miles a minute. The first night he laid eyes on her, she'd said she could do anything. Now he was beginning to understand why. He sank down on the ledge with his shoulder against the banister, one leg hanging over the edge, holding onto the railing with one hand.

"And what about this... 'mind force' thing you mentioned?"

Lora glanced at him, then slowly turned back to the view, her focus on his motor cortex.

Jagg tried to shift himself to a more comfortable position but found his muscles wouldn't respond—he couldn't get his body to move. "Whoa, whoa—stop!"

Lora's lips curled as she released the hold and Jagg exhaled sharply, snatching his hand from the railing.

"Don't do that again!" Jagg stared at her with new respect. "I don't believe I'm saying this but you're motherfucking scary, you know," he said, shaking his head. "And you do that with just your mind?"

"Sometimes." She kept her eyes on the trees among the buildings.

"That means you... you could've stopped me last night." He shook his head again. "But you didn't. Why not?"

"I sensed no threat from you."

"You sensed?" Just when he thought he was getting a bit of a handle on this girl, she perplexed him some more. "Even when I act that way?"

"There was no threat in your intention."

"No threat in my intention." He chuckled, shaking his head. "But your choker...?"

"I was unconscious, so—"

"It's your automatic protection system. I get you. But still... You let me manipulate you... I even got you drunk!"

Lora turned to him, studying him. "Yes..." She knew he manipulated her, even as he did it, and she had allowed it—but she had not anticipated the effects. Toni explained alcohol to her this morning, and she realized that it was one of those things she had been shielded from in her life of training.

"I resent you not for it. It was a lesson for me to learn," she said. "It was not unpleasant." A corner of her mouth lifted. She could not remember ever feeling so relaxed and flowing—until the collar neutralized the effect of the alcohol when she lost consciousness. As for the kiss, she simply dismissed it. "Thank you for teaching me."

Jagg stared at her. "Teaching...?"

"It is one of many lessons I must learn—to live on your planet. You teach me."

His brows remained hiked to the second floor. "Planet... Riight... But with your choker—"

"With ability comes responsibility," she cut in. "I use it not randomly. Besides, excess use tires me."

He shook his head. Is she for real? "So... technically you don't really need protection, do you? No one can mess with you."

She gazed back at him with smiling eyes but said nothing. He was getting the picture.

"So you can do what you want. You don't have to stay here. You can go wherever you want, be whatever you want." He threw his hand out as if to present the expanse of Albany and beyond. "What are your plans?"

Lora swept her gaze across the green cityscape and sighed. "I have none."

He lifted his brow at that reply. "Why not?"

She sat silent for a long time, studying the skyline. Then she lowered her gaze to where the motorcycle was parked outside the fence. "My life was about one purpose only." She spoke slowly. "Now that I have no purpose, I have no life. All I do right now is surviving in a place that is alien to me. I have no plan. None, except to forget the life that was me and the world that was my home... Remembering all that... means... remembering how it all ended and how it brought me here..." She clamped her jaw, shaking her head. "I can not do it. It is all too painful. I might as well end myself."

Jagg's brows furrowed more, the more he heard her say. "No, don't think that way. You just want to start a new life. With a clean slate." He rubbed his stubbled chin as he scrutinized her.

She lifted her eyes to the skyline again. "Aye—yes."

"Lora," he said seriously.

She turned to meet his gaze, her face still.

He leaned forward on his raised knee, staring intently into her eyes. "How 'bout sticking with me and my crew? I'd give you something to do. A purpose... of sorts." He paused, waiting for a reaction, but she gave none. "I'm thinking, we could be partners or something. You with your abilities, my know-how, and my crew..."

She studied him at both levels. She both saw and sensed his restrained excitement at the possibilities he felt lay ahead. But there was something else there as well. "'Partners'?"

"Yeah, partners."

She turned back to the view to see if she could sense more without being visually distracted by looking at him. But he was holding back on that energy also. It was that unfamiliar energy she was introduced to last night. "Doing what?" she said.

"Anything we feel like. And more of what we've done so far."

She breathed slowly as she focused. She could feel his temperature jump by a degree in anticipation of her response. But she did not need to consider his proposal—it could almost have been anything and she still would have looked at it from the same perspective: Jagg had taken her in, given her shelter and food; he and his people had shown various levels of friendship and helped her to fit in, in just a couple of days. He had placed a challenge before her and made her new life interesting. No longer did she feel the need to seek a reason for still being alive. This was enough for her. She looked back at him with a gleam in her eyes but said nothing.

Jagg was wondering if she was hesitating. "You're not gonna have to get your hands dirty or anything... You just do what needs to be done – whenever we decide to do – whatever. And you'll get equal share of anything you help with." He stretched out his right hand. "Deal?"

She looked at his hand and back at him. She remembered the weapons he showed her during her first test. "Nothing that involves violence."

A corner of Jagg's mouth lifted. "With you with us, there's not gonna be need for violence."

"And I can not have every one know why I can do these things."

"Your secret is safe with me. No one's ever gonna know where you come from. And I won't ask you anything more about it unless you wanna talk. But I've got to tell the crew something, 'cause they'll be wondering about your skills, right?"

"Yes..."

"So let's say you can hypnotize people... That's bad enough but it's believable and they'll get used to it. And they're not gonna be able to tell the difference. Your 'mind force' thing's just gonna freak them out. As for the technical stuff," he waved his finger at her collar, "I can cover for you and take care of security etcetera. It's a workable solution. Just try to keep it within the boundaries of the explainable and don't toss anyone across the room without touching them."

The corners of Lora's lips curled upward. "That is violent."

"Yeah, but you kind of did it already."

They sat silent for a while, smiling in shared amusement. Then Jagg put forward his hand again. "Shake on it?" She studied him a moment, then put her hand in his and he gave it a solemn shake. "It's official then. Partners."

"Partners," she responded, her eyes gleaming.

— ∞ —

©2016 by kemorgan65

*Credit: Banner image of Ibany Water Tower in Albany, Georgia, photoshopped from photo by Michael Rivera CC-SA3.0 (Wikimedia Commons).