Chapter 11 Cyber Soul

Chapter 11

Cyber Soul

   Not long after Kia and Alex left Captain Marks on Older’s Island, a strange thing occurred. The air around his pitiful balled up body began to shimmer and vibrate. He sat up as a barely audible buzz grew louder and louder in his mind. Seeing that the air around him had an odd wavy, mirage-like appearance he lifted his right hand and stroked at it, thinking it to be some sort of fog.

  The fog suddenly gathered around his hand, coalescing into a silvery mist that completely gloved it then proceeded to gently thicken, grow and climb up his arm. He jerked away. The air turned silver and translucent, masking his face and blanketing his entire body as painful memories of sailing the great inland sea turned pleasurable again.  He sagged beneath the ancient oak as the mist engulfed and penetrated him and slowly undid at least some of the horror visited upon him by the company.

    Dreams of blue sky, wind-swollen sails and frothy white tops cascaded through his mind taking him back in time as his former Chimeran persona, the lion man Captain Marks, slowly returned  the dead…     

    Kian was now a Nano bionic shape shifter, and since the Earth’s atmosphere was thick with reconfigured Nano bots-his Nano bots, essentially making them living extensions of his presence and will, he could teleport his consciousness to Earth instantly. Such was not the case with Penny. She was now completely human. Ironically, she could not even swim now, she did not know how without her tail fin.

   Therefore, Kian had to prepare a small transport vessel for them both of them. He was determined to be with her as much as possible. Sending her to Earth alone was something he was not about to do. He still felt responsible for all her loss and suffering. Being an attentive surrogate father to her was the least he could do…

   Kian named his ship Penelope since she was the only reason he made it. It was a sleek white bird like craft.  From a distance, one might easily mistake it for a dove, perfectly suited for reentry into Earth’s thick atmosphere.

 Comfortably cocooned in a sky blue twelve by fifteen foot capsule they sat together on crescent shaped sofa. A six by four-foot view screen floated at eye level seven feet in front of them. The lovely blue ball called Earth filled the screen’s center. A black star sprinkled sky surrounded it. As Kian piloted the ship with nothing more than his mind, they could almost see it grow larger as they drew near. Kian glanced over at Penny. She was transfixed. After a moment, she realized he was looking at her, smiling at the delight he saw in her eyes.

  “You’re laughing at me,” she asked turning her head up to look him square in the eye.

 “No, of course not,” he said, “you’re just so adorable, like a child on Christmas Eve.”

 “Christmas Eve,” she asked, “who’s that?”

  This time Kian really did laugh, “Never mind.”

  She turned her attention back toward the screen slumping away from him, “it looks the same but it will never be the same. That day in the Media hub when they attacked you, something rose up inside of me I never knew was there. It made me do something I never thought I would do. It scared me. It still does.”

  “Anger,” Kian asked.

  “Rage,” she murmured, “and hatred, I could have killed them. If you hadn’t pushed them away, I would have. I know I would have. I’m bringing that back to Chimera. Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

  “No Penny you didn’t invent that. It’s not just yours. It was there all along and not just in you. Its’ always been there, curled in all of us. But you’re right in many ways Chimera is gone and never coming back. It will be very different. I did my best to set things right, but some things are lost forever. But we all can make a new Chimera, a new home for all of us, Lunans and Chimerans.”

   Kian still focused on Penny and their journey back to Earth had not noticed Micah and Nessa, much less their twenty thousand brothers and sisters still hiding in their ancient subterranean home. Even as his Nano bots swarmed the planet returning and restoring its Chimeran native DNA…