Second Sunrise [Justric & Lillian Thorne]

[Lillian Thorne]

Prudence Callaghan walked through a strange land at dusk, her long legs eagerly eating up the distance. Her intelligent hazel eyes took in her surroundings with interest while her heart tried to say “home” and mean it. Her eyes and her legs were doing their part but her heart was not. This wasn’t home for all that she was happy to be there, for all that she was eager for a new start. But it was too new, to alien to be home. Home had been a small farm in Northern Ireland, shared by her Papa and his brother and their broods. A small farm no longer able to house both large families. A small farm surrounded by people who knew about the eldest Callaghan girl’s troubles. Troubles that were not her fault, but when trouble was around someone had to own it.

She and her family’s covered wagon had set out months ago, traveling west to a land that was empty and ripe for the taking. A new beginning they had heard back in Ireland and back then, before the reality of it had set it, it had seemed like a dream. But that had been before the sea journey where they had been crammed too many into the boat and where little Tom had caught a cough that hadn’t ever left him. Even then, arriving in this new land they had all still felt that same excitement, it still felt like an adventure. The very land seemed to thrum with promise. A new Beginning, everything seemed to proclaim.

Even their covered Wagon had seemed like a novelty when they had started out, the canvas pristine, the wheels so large. But then the reality had set in. It was winter and the cold was pervasive, there was no shelter from it and the fires at night could only do so much. They huddled together for warmth through long dreary hours of rattling, bumpy travel. Tom’s cough had gotten worse and before they were a month in there was one less mouth to feed.

They buried him as deep as they could in a pretty spot high on a hill there the sun had a chance to warm up the ground some, softening it to a point. They buried him and covered the grave with rocks and hoped that the scavengers would leave him be. Papa read from their bible, they all said farewell and moved onward, leaving a little piece of themselves behind. Pru had stared back at the small wooden cross Bridget had made from some saplings and felt each inch from poor Tom as a blow to her heart. They’d had plenty of reasons to leave Ireland she knew, but the final one had been her troubles. Guilt pricked at her and had stolen much needed sleep from her along the journey.

Finally they were where they were going to be, just waiting for the claims office to open and then to make their way to their new home. But she’d needed to be out of the wagon, away from her family and away from the guilt she felt every time she looked at their thin faces and dark-circled eyes. So she’d offered to get firewood and had left before someone could offer to come with her as was their usual custom. It felt good to move through this land that still felt so foreign, taking great strides that ate up ground, pausing only every now and again to gather sticks for her task. The ground around her grew wetter and the air took on a familiar scent, one she’d not expected to find here. For the first time since they’d set out her heart spoke one word, “home.” She moved deeper into the wet ground of the bog and breathed in deep of the rich peaty smell. A smile flickered across her pretty face, the first in months. What a surprise to find a place so familiar so far away from home. It felt like the land was offering her a gift, something to make her feel welcome, like she belonged there.

She was lost in thought, remembering home, remembering Tom so she didn’t hear the first signs of their approach. When a particularly loud snap of a twig reached her ears she gasped and spun taking n the scene in a second. Three boys, all of them larger and older than her, two of them looking like siblings formed a half circle around her. She clutched her pile of sticks closer to her chest and backed up a step, dipping her head to hide behind her fall of dark red-hair. She wanted so badly to run, her feet were twitching for it but she knew, from past experience, that they liked it when you ran.

“Well now what ‘ave we ‘ere Rory?” asked the oldest of them. A tall boy with cruel eyes and a mask of freckles over his leering face.

“I'd say we have a new neighbor.” Said the one, presumably called Rory, with a hungry expression on his face.

The third one just nodded, his eyes on the partly concealed swell of her breasts behind the pile of sticks she clutched. It was too much, the scene too familiar, she ran. It didn’t take trouble long to catch her, it had been catching her off and on since she’d begun showing signs of being a woman and whatever particular combination of her face and shape that made men like these thinks she was ripe for the taking had developed. They took her and then as she lay sobbing, broken and used, they ended her. It wasn’t hard to hide the evidence of their fun, it was a bog after all. They carried her deep into the bog and threw her in at a deep point. The bog embraced her like a mother, holding her and keeping her safe. It seemed like an end to Pru Callaghan’s troubles.

[Justric]

Jacob sighed from his workstation. He had sent the others home hours ago, leaving himself to take watch over their charges. What remained of them, at any rate. Eighteen of the twenty “resurrection” tanks were empty now. The initial trials had been promising, but the entirety of Project Orpheus had been a dismal failure to date.

The reviving of long dead corpses into fully functional human beings was a concept that drew a lot of heat from both the religious and the political, and more often than not they were one and the same. But after Professor McNulty's demonstration with dogs, the academic and corporate world banded together with funding enough for this lab and all of its equipment. When that failed to be enough, the military took an interest. Soldiers that could be brought back from the dead? Renewable troops!

But Jacob's team had suffered setbacks time and time again, not the least of which was Professor McNulty's stroke. He had been fond of his boss, a straight-backed, no nonsense woman of 60 who seemed to know more than God. Only two years into a six year commitment and she died. Jacob was her lead assistant and so the logical choice to take over. The academic society had not been happy about that; he was only 30 and had no real reputation behind him. But the military had insisted. Then the military had discovered that their dream of never having to pay out early on pensions and death benefits would not be as cost effective as they had hoped; Jacob wondered why they ever thought so to begin with. The companies who were providing corporate backing had been strong in their continued support... until the first test subjects were “decanted.”

Things went downhill even faster from there.

Now there were only two, and it was only thanks to fast talking on Jacob's part and an additional grant from an anonymous donor that kept any hope alive.

He was tired. He had no idea what he and the team would do after all of this was over. If neither of the subjects were viable, then all of his work would have been for nothing and his career would be in ashes. The idea of trying to survive without steady academic or lab work, that sent shivers down his spine. He tried to dismiss the thought as he brushed a stray lock of blonde hair from his eyes. I really need a haircut soon, he thought.

One of the lights on the console began to flicker, a red light that caught his eye. Frowning, he leaned his thin frame over to check the readings. His gaunt face was reflected in the screen's soft glow, his spectacles small circles of light in the image.

“Oh, no,” he moaned, “Not now! It's too early!”

He flung himself from the workstation and bounded down the stairs into the lab proper. Gesturing wildly at Tank #19, he yelled. “Not now! There's no one else here! You're not supposed to pop for another couple of hours!”

Hurrying to the tank controls, he began to increase the stimulators. Tiny electrical pulses were sent into the tank, too small to be felt by the flesh but just enough to jump start neuro-processes that had not yet been initiated. Frantically, he balanced the flows of power, trying to stabilize the subject.

“Couldn't you have been late instead?” he grumbled. “I thought women from your era were supposed to take forever to get ready.”

Having done what he could, he realized there was no choice. If Subject 19 was viable and conscious, leaving her trapped in a tank for several more hours would be traumatizing, threatening any chance of success on all points. Jacob sighed in resignation and activated the flush mechanism. The restorative bio-agents were drained efficiently. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he released the locking mechanism, afraid of what might lay inside that tank. Some of the prior releases had been less than pleasing to see; a couple of them still haunted his nightmares.

As the lid lifted and the pale red liquid drained, he lifted his eyebrows in surprise. She's fully formed! Thank god for that.

[Lillian Thorne]

Heaven wasn’t what Pru thought it would be. It wasn’t calmly cool like she’d thought, not the quiet kiss of a cloud against a cheek. It simply was, neither hot nor cold. She wondered if she’d gone to hell but quickly dismissed that in her sleepy not quite awake state. Hell would be hot and filled with suffering, she wasn’t hot and she wasn’t suffering, she just was. But as she drifted and became more aware details of her state started to come to her. Heaven or Purgatory was… wet? It was also filled with an odd assortment of sounds, tinny, distant noises that sounded almost like birds chirping but were not, rhythmic and unchanging she couldn’t wrap her mind around them. Just as soon as she had her mind had almost wrapped around the sounds they changed, coming faster and louder some of them turning into long high shrieks that made her heart want to race.

Her heart. It was beating even though she was dead and awaiting her entrance into heaven. She hadn’t come to terms with that when something else changed. A pull downwards, like water sluicing away. Did they have water in heaven? Even as she had the thought the fluid was gone, leaving her bare and in its place was pain. Pain as nerves, long dead fired. Pain as muscles and tendons long dormant and held in suspension by the nutritive fluids suddenly had to support their own weight. Gravity suddenly took her and she drew in a breath to scream only to begin coughing and hacking as lungs long unused and filled with the fluids of the tank began to protest their use. Somehow she wound up on her side, curled around herself which was a mercy because the top of the tank opened then and light poured in, light which seared her eyes so that she clumsily lifted hands to block the painful light that filtered through her closed eyelids.

She finally managed a breath and with it she screamed as her hands flailed around trying to make sense of the heaven that had just turned into hell.

[Justric]

Jacob winced at the scream. Something about it tore through his heart and spiked up into his brain. That, sadly, was to be expected, yet to always caught him off guard. He had always entertained the romantic notion that coming back to life should be like waking from a soft slumber, ready to face the new day with a yawn and a stretch. The other subjects, those who lasted a short time before expiring, seemed to think it otherwise. Then again, he thought darkly, I've never been dead so what the hell do I know?

"Shit, shit, shit," he repeated in frustration. There were supposed to be psychiatrists here, mental health workers, historians, even a linguist in case the subjects spoke something other than English. Jacob knew the procedures that should be followed. Hell, he wrote half of them! But it would take at least half an hour for the nearest of the team members to get here by tram, and this woman needed help now. She wouldn't be dehydrated or hungry, the bio-agents should have seen to that. But the stimulators could only do so much for her muscles, and who knows how long it had been since her eyes had seen light?

He reached down into the tank to try and grab at her arms. "Come on, lady, you're going to hurt yourself! Just... just calm down, you're alright! You're alright!" Jacob tried to keep his voice soothing as he could, a trial given the circumstances. "Just keep your eyes closed. I'll get you out of there in a second, okay? Do you understand what I'm saying? It's going to be alright."

Cold. She was going to be cold. Where was the kit? One of the first things he should have grabbed was the large orange box filled with the supplies: towels, bathrobes, blinders, water bottles, first aid kit, portable de-fib paddles, adrenaline hypos. In his haste to keep the tank from "over-cooking" her, he had left it on the far side of the lab. He struggled out of his green lab coat and tried to cover her naked form with it. "Here," he said in gentler but urgent tones, "Get this on. Come on, that's it. Let's get you out of there."

[Lillian Thorne]

Hands were on her, hands that touched her skin, hands like those of the boys who had called her neighbor before they’d violated her. She screamed again, a raw frightened sound more than half animal as she batted at the hands touching her. She was in that moment again, re-living it, forgetting that she had died. The boys were over her, holding her down, taking from her again. In her mind she pleaded, prayed but her mouth wouldn’t work, wouldn’t form the words and only helpless animal sounds came out of her.

She heard the voice speaking but in her panic and above her own screams none of the words registered just the tone, cozening, soothing.

“Hush now neighbor, we are just welcoming you….”

“No!” she managed finally. It felt like such a relief even though she knew it would do her as much good now as it had the other times. “No!” she tried again and then because she was a good girl, “Please!”

Then something was touching her, fabric, warm fabric that brought her partially back from a panic making her realize how very cold she was now that the warm wetness of heaven had been removed. Heaven, she’d died…. She slumped, all fight going out of her, again.

“That’s right sweetheart, you know you like us, you know you want to be all neighborly.”

But without her screams drowning out all other sounds she could hear the voice that spoke again. It was different, new with an accent she couldn’t place. She realized in that moment of shock that someone had come to help her, someone was covering her nakedness, seeing her shame.

“Please.” She tried again, her voice raw but containing some of the musical quality it normally held. “ C-c-c-cold.” She finished as she tried to use her weak and confused limbs to help him in his task of lifting her.

[Justric]

Thank god, she speaks English after all!

"Yeah, I know it's cold. We'll take care of that in a second. Come on, easy does it. That's it. You're safe now, no one's going to hurt you." Jacob eased her up and out of the tank, guiding her weak and shaking legs down the small steps to the lab floor. In the back of his mind, he was trying to place her accent. He knew her body had been found in what used to be the western half of the United States, but the musical lilt of her voice didn't seem to match the drawl that the linguists had expected. He wished he had her file close at hand.

He eased her to the floor, letting his lab coat cover her as best as it was able. Jacob knew that the muscle vibration therapies that the tank provided didn't do nearly enough for her limbs; the team had been limited in many regards and had to take what shortcuts as they could. "Stay right here. I'm just going to go over there and get you some water."

He practically lurched over to the kit and leaped back again, taking no more than a handful of seconds to roll over the large orange box. Wasting no time he pulled out a bottle of filtered water and uncapped it, trying to press it into her trembling fingers. "Here now, take this. You'll want to wash out your mouth, I'll bet." With his other hand, Jacob reached in and grabbed several of the thick towels piled on one side. While not large enough to make a blanket, enough of them covered her shaking body to keep the heat from dispelling. The box also contained sedatives; Jacob debated briefly about administering them but decided to hold off. There was no telling how she would react right now if he jabbed her with a hypo, and there was no one to restrain her if she became violent.

"There's a shower unit just over here, you can get cleaned up when you're ready. Just take your time and relax, okay? No one's going to hurt you. Can you tell me your name?" he asked encouragingly. "What's your name?"

[Lillian Thorne]

It was strange, the man’s voice was soft and soothing but it was like he wasn’t speaking her language for all that she understood every other word. He spoke of water and she focused on that, Water she knew. Water had been the hardest part about traveling sometimes. Getting enough to drink, to wash. In the winter they’d had to melt snow and not bathe for fear of dying of exposure, in the spring time they’d been traveling through arid lands and not had enough storage space to carry it when they did happen upon a stream. It had been an oversight of Papa’s that no one had spoken of but everyone had felt. It had made Papa so cross, quick to snap.

The man handed her something cylindrical and she automatically grasped it, her eyes still closed shut tight against the light that still hurt her eyes. It crinkled in her grasp, the side crumpling in and wetness ran down over her hand. Her eyes flew open reflexively and she gasped in pain and quickly closed them again. She muttered “Sorry” and held out the thing, not wanting to damage it further as pain throbbed in her skull from the assault of light on her re-born optic nerves.

Then she felt the man was putting something soft on her, cloth of some impossible softness and she paused to feel it against her skin. It felt warm and comforting and she lifted up a hand to touch the surface. It was bumpy and rough and felt strangely unfinished to hands that had worked a loom. ‘What sort of fabric was this’ she wondered as her fingers tried to do her eye’s work.

He spoke of further things she didn’t understand and she shook her head, uncertain of even how to respond: shower? But she heard name, she knew that one and it made sense. Her name, the boys hadn’t asked for it, they never did. Exchanging names might make her feel safe, human and not just a collection of confused discomfort.

“My name is Prudence Callaghan, and may I ask who it is I am speaking to?” she asked in her rippling musical voice.

[Justric]

Jacob was startled. The subject shouldn't have been that coherent already. At least, not in theory. The pathways in her brain would only just have re-established, much like her muscle control. It was supposed to be days, weeks even before she should be able to talk. Trembling and upset as she was, her voice was lyrical and smooth; it was quite unlike anything he had ever heard. Combined with her accent, the sound of it tugged at his heart. Jacob did his best to put the sound of it out his mind, trying to focus on what went right for a change that she should be so clear.

He pressed the water bottle back into her hands. "Don't worry about the bottle, Ms. Callaghan. It's hard to explain but just don't squeeze too hard. You shouldn't be dehydrated but its best we get your system flushed out as soon as we can. Now then, my name is Jacob. Jacob Cartwright. I'm a doctor. Sort of."

Reaching into the box again, he withdrew the blinders and slipped it over her head. With the sleep mask covering her eyes, he hoped she might be able to relax a bit more. "This will keep the light from your eyes until we can get you used to the brightness again. Now I know it seems like an odd time to do this, but I have some very important questions to ask you. The questions are going to seem very strange, alright? Just please answer as best as you can. I'll make the first few as easy as I can for you."

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled for the digital audio recorder. He knew the lab's main cameras should be catching the action; they were rigged to go off whenever any of the alarms sounded. All the same, he glanced up to check and make sure the nearest camera's active light was on. With a flick of his thumb, he activated the recorder.

"Now, you said your name was Prudence Callaghan. What year is it, Miss Callaghan? What's the last thing you remember?"

[Lillian Thorne]

A doctor. She relaxed when she heard that word. Whatever had happened, whatever was wrong with her she was in the hands of a doctor. She held onto the bottle as instructed though it felt like no bottle she’d ever held before and brought it to her lips. the water filled her mouth and she wrinkled her nose in disgust before she could recall herself and mind her manners. The water tasted flat and lifeless. Thought it felt the same and certainly filled her belly the same it was different from what she was used to. She smoothed out her face as he put on the mask and she hoped he hadn’t thought her ungrateful.

“Dr. Cartwright.” She said, trying out the name, letting it roll off her tongue.
His question was odd but he’d prepped her that it would be and she thought that maybe he was checking to see how addled she was. Her head had been hit pretty hard though it was the water that killed her, the black creeping water that slowly filled her lungs. She started coughing reflexively and water from the strange bottle sloshed everywhere as memories of dying filled her mind. But no, she hadn’t died. She was here now breathing. She’d been found and saved. She wondered what happened to the boys, would anyone believe her?

She caught her breath and whispered a quiet, “Sorry.” Before sitting up again, pulling that wondrous fabric around her shoulders.

“It’s April 1846, I don’t know the date, somewhere in the middle I think, we hadn’t passed a town in a few weeks and it were March last time we knew.”

He’d asked what the last thing she remembered was and she wasn’t sure she could say it. the shame of it washed over her. She wasn’t pure any more, hadn’t been for a long time, not since they’d left home but to say it to someone, someone outside her family felt so wrong. She couldn’t lie though, didn’t want to. Twisting her fingers into the fabric she gathered up her courage and went on, her voice cracking a little.

“Last thing I remember is the boys throwing me into the bog after they… after they used me.” she finished.

[Justric]

Jacob's eyes went wide. He wanted to curse himself. They knew she had been a drowning victim, that she had contusions and abrasions, but that was all they could tell at the time. Find enough core material still intact had been a miracle, so McNulty hadn't chosen to look too closely at any other details. But not one of them had ever asked how she got there to begin with.

"Shit," he cursed under his breath. He really needed the rest of the team here; his trauma counseling classes were some time ago. He didn't quite know how to deal with this. She was a human being and she had just gone through three traumas: rape, death and... resurrection.

The scientific portion of his brain was likewise engaged, and fought for run time with his baser instincts to comfort and protect. 1846? Dating was off by about 50 years, but that wasn't too surprising. That field of science had never been all that accurate, despite the century or more of research behind it. But to talk to someone from before the War Between the States! To get a window on that era! That may have been only a secondary purpose behind Project Orpheus, but it was the far more fascinating of the two.

"Okay, look. Miss Callaghan? I know this may not mean much to you, but... the men who did this to you. They're dead. You can be sure of that. You're safe now, and I need you to understand that." Jacob was pretty sure he shouldn't have said anything of the sort, that the rest of the team would object to his violation of the procedures. But they weren't here, the subject was in a state of consciousness that was unpredicted, and it was important for her to know that she was safe.

"A lot of what's going to happen from here on out is going to seem very strange to you, and some of it may be frightening. I need you to trust me. No one is going to hurt you and I will stay by your side the whole time, I promise. Very soon, a lot of other people are going to be here and they are going to have a lot of questions for you as well. Many of them are doctors as well, and we need to make sure that you're alright. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask. I... can't promise I can give you answers that you'll understand, but I will try."

"Now... do you think you can stand? I'd like to get you washed and dressed before the others arrive." The last part was more for her own dignity than any sense of propriety. The majority of his team wouldn't care if she was covered in tuna fish as long as she could answer their questions.