Second Sunrise [Justric & Lillian Thorne]

[Lillian Thorne]

Could she lie? She’d never been a liar, her mother had taught her better than that. But she heard the panic in Jacob’s voice and knew that things were dire, her life, his life were on the line. She could bear the smudge of a lie on her soul. For him, she’d bear worse. She nodded and ran, letting loose all the panic she’d been reigning in since she’d left Oberhall’s office and seen what he’d seen. All of her fear surfaced, she’d wanted just enough to aid her when she set out to lie, but what she got was a torrent. Like one of the streams swollen with snow-melt her family had to navigate towards the end of their trip, when they were exhausted and done in. She felt the same in the face of this emotion she’d unleashed so that when she skidded to a stop in front of the poor cleaning crew she looked like a madwoman. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and streaming with tears, her lower lip trembling with tears.

When she spoke, she forced her accent, knowing how different English was now from when she was alive, the way the dialects had become more homogenous because of the ease of communication. Everyone spoke the same, or close enough that her brogue when pushed made her almost unintelligible to them even when using simple words.

“Please.” She started, her breath coming in gasps between sobs. “He’s sick, he’s down. Oh please!”

She kept at it, broken sentences that never saw their end, sobs that swallowed all sense and tears big enough to catch the artificial light and reflect it back at them. She repeated herself, let her frustration at their lack of understanding show and grow. She kept pointing towards the bio-dome and kept up her pleads. Eventually something caught at their comprehension and they backed away from her as if remembering who she was and what she carried. They kept helpful expressions on their faces but they slowly backed away, giving her soothing lies in return for her pleading ones. She knew they wouldn’t go help Jacob. Their fear of her possible contamination was enough to keep them from being close to her, there was no way they would expose themselves to an ill Jacob. But that wasn’t the point. She’d delayed them, she’d done it. She watched their retreat turn into a full out run and hoped that they were the cowards they seemed to be and that they would just flee the area rather than risk getting caught up into a quarantine. The question was, had she kept them enough?

She turned back and ran towards where Jacob worked at the codes, wiping the tears away from her face and trying to get a hold of herself. She didn’t want Jacob to think she was as upset as she was from anything new. She skidded back around the corner and called to him, her brogue still a little high,

“I’ve done it, they are running off, but I’m not sure where too.”

[Justric]

Jacob pounded the last integer into the keypad and was rewarded with the click and hiss of the hatch opening. He turned to look up at Prudence as she came back around the corner, and the sight wrenched his heart. Her heaving bosom certainly would have been distracting in other circumstances, but the rest of her was too alarming not to take a priority. Her pale skin was flushed, her freckles standing out like red stars. Even the lines about her eyes were red from the onset of weeping. It was all he could not to rush to her and give what comfort as he may. As she told him their ruse worked, he smiled ruefully while chiding himself. "I think you missed your calling, Pru. You should have been an actress," he murmured lovingly.

Gesturing to the hatch, he motioned for her to go first. It was a small dark square near the floor of the corridor, perhaps three feet across in both height and width. A dim red light receded into the dim shadows. It would be a tight fit for them both. "You go first. Just follow the red lights straight on for a bit until you get to an intersection, then take the first right turn. It should open up a bit just after that, and we can get our bearings. I'll seal the hatch behind us. Once we're in, there's no way they can track us. The further in we go, the further we'll be from the main environmental vents. That means that it will get colder as we go."

As he spoke, he became aware of a fierce thudding noise that seemed to come from all about. There was a rhythm to it, steady but fast and strong. He was so startled by the noise that he was about to ask her if she heard it as well, when it dawned on him that it was his own heart. Every pulse was a jolt in his chest. He could even hear it within his ears. Jacob had never truly been afraid before, never so frightened as to fall into inaction. Experiencing the terror now of what fates awaited them if caught, he began to sweat slightly. Jail for him, with possible reconditioning. She would never get out of the labs; it would no longer be a matter of human rights of one individual but the safety and health of the public, that's what Oberhall and those like him would argue. In giving up his life for Prudence, he also gave up any influence or power he might have had in that life.

Looking at her now, beautiful if tearful, he steeled himself. Medical teams could be around the corner at any moment, but Jacob decided there should be time for another kiss... Just in case it was the last one.

[Lillian Thorne]

When he kissed her he would find her warm and willing. The whole of her, body and soul was present in the kiss as she melted into him. Her strong body soft for him. She was practical though, always practical and fear certainly spiked it. She pulled back with just enough reluctance to be satisfying and a slightly dreamy look in her eyes even as she moved away towards the hatch, dropping to her hands and knees. Just before she ducked inside she looked back over her shoulder at him and said with a new kind of smile, a hungry teasing smile,

“Just think, the next time we make love it might be under the stars looking up at this place.” And then she was in.

Seeing the tunnel and knowing it was tight was one thing, experiencing it was another thing. She was about a yard into it when she realized the problem. She was a creature of open skies, first the heaths of Ireland, her family farm and then the long trip across the new land. Her time in the lab had been an adjustment for so many reasons but she’d been more at ease in the bio-dome because of its open space. Passageways had been something she’d endured to get to the places she had to. This, this was different. She could have sworn as she moved that the tunnel was getting smaller and smaller. Her heart hammered in her chest and her blood seemed to roar in her ears. Her breath came in short desperate gasps, it was evident she was in great distress. Each inch she moved forward was a fight until finally she stopped, she couldn’t go on. Her head lowered to the floor, resting on her hands where they were splayed on the chilled floor. She shivered from a mix of fear and cold. She would have rather liked to curl up fetal and whimper but things were too tight for even that.

But she was practical, practical to the end and she knew that they had to go on, the hatch was closed behind them. There was a flutter of panic at that thought not to mention the idea of backing up all that way made her stomach curdle. She had to go on, she knew this, she just couldn’t make herself.

“Jacob.” She called back to him, her voice plaintive and yet trying to maintain control. “Would you tell me our story? Tell me it like it has a happy ending. I need to hear that. Once upon a time there was a girl name Prudence and she died so that she might meet the most amazing man…. Something like that. Please? You talk and I’ll…. I’ll move forward. I’m having a little difficulty you see…”

[Justric]

The sight of her on her hands and knees, smiling back at him over her shoulder in such a sultry manner, drove all sense of fear from Jacob as a flood of hormones was released. Her talking of the next time they made love...

Once inside, Jacob sealed the hatch tight. In the dim red light, he watched the keypad's indicator flicker. It only took a second, but the display confirmed that the hatch was locked from this side and that no log of the access had been filed. His eyes still on the small screen imbedded into the wall, he began to inch forward until he realized that Prudence hadn't moved all that far. The contours of her behind were outlined beneath the faint illumination. Before he could even ask what the matter was, she began to speak in a voice that told him volumes. She was claustrophobic?

A story? He tried to think rapidly, sorting out details in his head to give her something to cling to. He was no storyteller. In fact, he cringed as he thought of the abysmal grades he had gotten in college when it came to creative writing. Still, she inspired him and he could not let that go unanswered, not when she was in need.

"Right... So... Once... A long time ago... There was girl named Prudence. She was a good, hard working young woman who loved her family and was loved in turn. When her family traveled to a new land, she stepped up and helped wherever she could. If her family got sick, she would help nurse them back to health as best as she was able. She knew all sorts of herbs and medicines to help people who were ill. Now... you might think this would make her special all by itself. After all, being kind-hearted and helpful are wonderful traits. But she was also intelligent! Far more intelligent than even she realized. And brave! Again, far braver than she ever guessed herself, because who but the bravest of people would leave their home for a new world where everything was strange? So Prudence was kind and wise and intelligent and brave. Still, this was not the whole of her blessing because she was beautiful as well. Her hair was as red as the sun just before it's last edge dips before the horizon, nearly flame red. And her skin was pale and fair, with brilliant freckles that shone like stars in the sky, beautiful constellations. She did not know how beautiful she was or how wise or intelligent or kind... and that added further to her grace and charm.

"Now as it happened, there were brigands in the land, rough men who thought only of themselves. And when Prudence's family had stopped for a rest one day, these villains stole her away and treated her vilely, leaving her to die alone and forgotten.

"Thousands of years later, there was a young and foolish wizard named Jacob. Looking back in time, he saw Prudence and how she had been ill-treated. His heart went out to her, and he vowed that such beauty and kindness should not be cast aside so wastefully. Summoning other wizards to help him, he reached back in time to pluck her body from where she lay and bring her back to life. For years they labored with... with spells and incantations, potions both vile and sweet, to bring her back to life.

"When Prudence arose, naked but whole, Jacob fell in love with her. As the wizards and their minions taught her the ways of this new world and learned of hers, Jacob saw exactly how kind and intelligent Prudence really was and came to love her all the more. When... when a curse from the past struck Jacob down, it was by Prudence's loving hands that he was healed and he revealed his love for her. So it came to pass that they lived together in a garden of beauty. The garden was not a real garden, being made by wizards as it was, but there they could live and love in privacy. They confessed their love for one another and... and they knew each other as a husband and wife.

"In this wizards' keep, Jacob had a rival, the dark wizard Oberhall. Oberhall was jealous of the formula used to bring Prudence to life and envious of the love she and Jacob shared. Summoning her, the dark wizard threatened that if she did not obey him, he would strike down his fellow wizard. He had come to know their secrets and would reveal them to the world if she did not leave Jacob.

"Cunning as Oberhall thought he was, he did not take into account how brave Prudence was. She ran to Jacob beneath the roses and told him of the dastardly plans his fellow wizard had laid. Fearing for them both, Jacob led Prudence from their garden and into the wizards' keep to try and escape. They snuck past the guards into the dungeons beneath the keep, seeking a way out into the forests beyond. The tunnels were dark and cramped, but only lasted for a short time. At the other end, they found a coach of silver that would carry them far from the keep and the evil Oberhall. They fled in the night, the stars shining about them and blessing them as they made for their new home in the woods.

"Once they were safe, Jacob built them a fine home far from anyone who might disturb them. She taught him to live off the land, to breath in the fragrance of real roses in a real garden. In turn, he taught her the stars in the sky and read to her from the oldest of books all through the night. They lived a long and peaceful life of love together, laying within one another's arms sometimes the entire day, grateful that they had escaped Oberhall and the wizards' keep so that they might see a second sunrise."

[Lillian Thorne]

His words made her smile, the faltering way he started and the way he braved on despite his discomfort moved her. Within the first few words she was moving again, one painful inch after another. As his words came with more ease so did her progress. As he wove his tale of wizards and love that would not be contained she moved towards that, one small bit at a time. She felt her heart, her flawed, loving heart swell with emotion. When he spoke of them knowing each other as man and wife she knew it to be true. No they hadn’t been wed. Not in any way her parents, staunch Catholics, would have recognized, but they were wed sure enough. Her heart knew it, he’d made sure her body knew it and certainly God, who knew all knew it.

His story was perfect, as long as it needed to be and told with enough feeling to make her almost forget the tunnel that closed in around her. He chose the perfect words to distract her and when they got to the intersection he had spoken of she turned right as directed and then sobbed in relief as it opened up. She got up on her haunches which was as far she could but it was enough to provide some sense of relief against the feeling of being squeezed and swallowed up. She tried to calm her breathing, closing her eyes and resting with her back against a wall, back lit by one of the red lights that had provided the dim illumination that had made things seem even tighter.

She turned to Jacob when he arrived out of the tunnel and wrapped her arms around his neck. Trembling against him.

“I’m sorry.” She said into his neck. Her lips lightly kissing his skin between words like he was water and she was dying of thirst.

“I’ve never been anywhere so tight, not even in the ship from Ireland. I didn’t know it would be so hard for me. I promise I won’t be so useless once we get back on earth.”

[Justric]

Jacob held her fast, kissing the top of her head. "You're not useless, Pru. Don't ever think that. You just don't like tight spaces, that's all. It's perfectly normal. Hell, you should see me at the top of a ladder, I can't stand heights! Everyone has their fears, love." He reached down to take one of her hands in his, bringing it up to kiss the back of her wrist. "You didn't let it freeze you. You saw there was a problem, thought about a solution and asked for help. To me, those are the actions of a rather brave and capable person."

"Now it gets tighter again just for a few meters, but then it opens up again. If you need another story, I'll... I'll think of something. Or... I know! If it gets too tight around you, think of our new home. Someplace nice, wide and open. We can build it near the ocean, warm tropical breezes blowing in on use, nothing overhead but sunlight and clouds. Better still, a big clearing in a forest somewhere, maybe... maybe a stream running close by? We can work our own garden, a farm a couple of acres across where we can work our own food? Did I tell you I looked up how to build log cabins? There's somethings I'm sure I forgot, but there was this great series of books I was studying..."

"At any rate, we just head down this passage for a few meters where it opens up again. From there I should be able to access the controls that pop us into the storage room near the landing bay. That means we're more than halfway out of here."

Her hot breath and lips tickling against his throat caused him to gulp. The lanky scientist was suddenly all too aware of how closely Prudence was pressed against him, feeling her body through the thin station clothing. The all too fresh memory of her saucy wink as she went on all fours to climb down the tunnel hit him hard. The sweet smell of her hair was in his nose again, and his thoughts began to churn. There was an argument between his mind and body regarding there being a time and place for everything. "Um, Pru?" He gulped with a harsh intake of breath. "We might want to get a move on. Otherwise... it... ah... might prove a bit more difficult for me to want to."

[Lillian Thorne]

His hitched breath made her suddenly very much in the here and now, the tightness of the tunnel suddenly took second seat to the tightness of their embrace. It was madness, sheer madness to have the thoughts she was having, not when they were so deep in enemy territory such as it were. But in the end she was practical and she was rather firm with the part of herself that yammered to push him, to see how far she could get him to go. That part resisted, it did not want to be put aside but she was determined and in the end she was able to move out of his arms and into the tunnel. But then that part wasn’t so far put away that she did so only after planting a wet, sucking, suggestive kiss on his neck just under his jaw. Then she was moving away, lust distracting her enough to ease her into the tightness.

She didn’t get far before the panic came back and she found her movements slowing, her heart racing again. She thought back to what he’d said and brought it to the fore. Think of their home, she could do that. She pictured building a cabin with him, felling the wood, shaping it, lifting the heavy logs and feeling the burn in their bodies of a hard day’s labor. Then tucking into a good meal together and then discovering that despite being exhausted they had enough in them to come together as man and wife. Despite her panic she smiled in the dimness and moved forward again. All that promise awaited her, she just needed to get there, just needed to get to the end of this tight spot. She could do it.

She thought about where they would put their home. She liked the idea of the forest clearing. She’d grown fond of the dark berries she’d seen on her family’s journey west and her mouth salivated to think of them, but then she recalled an early conversation she’d had with Jacob about the changes in plants, the way whole species had been wiped out. She supposed it didn’t matter what they ate, it would all be all the more delicious for being grown in the living earth by their own two hands. He’d mentioned the ocean too, she’d never been near the warmer oceans she’d read about on his idesk, but the images she’d seen had been so different than the cold slate-gray waters her family had passed a few miserable months on. She’d been terrified of the Ocean, so much water and nothing between her and it but some leaking, wreaking wood. She’d never learned to swim, it wasn’t seemly for girls to do it back in her day and she wondered if she would have been able to survive the last attack if she’d been able to swim. But then if she’d survived she’d never have met Jacob. It was such a strange thing to be grateful for one’s death.

“Jacob,” she called in a tight voice with only the slightest edge of panic to it. “Do you know how to swim? Would you teach me?”

[Justric]

The question caught Jacob off guard, cooling the passions that her hungry kiss had fanned. "Swim?" When was the last time he went swimming? He remembered swimming as a boy during the camping trips he and his father took. And then it had been a requirement during his earliest days of college. But since then? "I... I guess I can teach you. It's been a few years, but... I guess it's liking riding a bike: You never really forget."

Then he caught the tremor in her voice, realized her panic was about to return. He scrambled for something, anything to keep her distracted. "Soo... You never learned to swim? You're going to love it, Pru. I don't know much about swimming in the ocean, but... but there was this big creek I used to swim around in during our family vacations. On a hot day, there was nothing better than jumping in nake-" Jacob halted that train of thought before it went too far and distracted him. "The cold water hitting you when you first jump in? It wakes you up, makes you aware of everything around you. And then I'd just... float. On my back. I'd let the water carry me downstream to this one pool where I could just stare up at the clouds and watch the birds. Sometimes I'd see a rocket trail and think about what it must be like to travel to the stars. Sometimes a fish would jump up and out of the water to catch a passing bug or something; it would scare the snot out of me! I'd paddle back up stream until where I was back where I started and then..." He laughed at himself. "Then I'd relax and do it all over again."

Jacob found himself warming to the topic, even as the passageway began to open again. He crowded next to her in front of a small display panel. Shooting her a grin, he started to type on the mini number pad. "Wait until you get your first real look underwater, Pru! I mean, at first it looks just like wet mud swirling around, and if you're not careful your feet stir up all the sediment and muck it all up. If you're patient, though, and stay still, you start to see all sort of things you'd never guess at being under the water. It's one thing to see crayfish being served up on a plate for lunch, but to see them actually... scuttling around? And the water beetles? And watching the fish dart around above you after you dive down, all silvery and pink?"

This keycode was easier to bypass so it was not long before the hidden hatchway hissed open. Jacob looked out into a darkened room, trying to get his bearings. The opening was not near the floor but closer to the ceiling, about a five foot drop to the floor. The room was eerily still and quiet compared to the rest of the complex. He had never been inside of it himself that he recalled. It was a storeroom for the shuttle bay, its usage and space dedicated to the maintenance staff. With luck, there should be pressure suits somewhere amid all the crates and shelves. While materials filled the room and clouded close about them, the ceiling was rather high and allowed for plenty of space. "Right," he muttered, "We're just a stone's throw away now, Pru. I'll slide out first and then catch you on your way down. Then we can look for the light switch."

[Lillian Thorne]

She focused on his talk of swimming and it eased her much as his story had. When he got to the part about floating downstream she had a moment of panic as she tried to picture it and instead of a peaceful scene she saw only mud seeping up over her eyes, her body being sucked down. But even that helped her somehow. If she was focused on the pain of remembering her death she wasn’t thinking about the walls of the tunnels squeezing in on her.

Before she even knew it she was at his side as he punched in a new code. She was all over sweat, her clothing clinging to her coolly damp skin. She felt exhausted, like she’d gone further than she really had. Her body shook from the effort of it but still she gave off a relieved laugh and sagged against him, her body on all fours pressing into him enough for comfort but not enough to make his work hard. She listened to the chimes of the keypad and when the hatch was open she was eager to get out. She watched him slid out but didn’t wait for him to call for her. She just couldn’t, she waited only until she heard the sound of his landing before she was lowering herself out. She was tall and she was strong and in the end it wasn’t at all difficult.

When she was standing in the dark storage room, barely able to make out Jacob in the residual light coming from the hatch over hear, she began to feel how cold she really was. He’d said it was going to be cold in the tunnels and he hadn’t misled her. The station was maintained at a comfortable temperature and as such the clothing was designed with that temperature in mind. The hatches were considerably colder. That meant that all the perspiring she’d done was now cold against her skin, wicking more of her precious warmth from her. In the silence of the hatch a soft rattling could be heard and with a start Pru realized it was coming from her, from her teeth.
She did her best to contain herself. He didn’t need to worry more. She clenched her jaw tight and wrapped her arms around herself and when she thought she had enough of herself in control she asked,

“Now what?”

[Justric]

"Find the damn light switch," he grumbled as he tried to make his way to the far wall. Jacob swore as he tripped over a large crate. "If I was chipped or had my iDesk, I could do it remotely, but I'll have to find the manual control." It took a few precious moments of stumbling until he made his way over. This wasn't a room he was really familiar with, so even once he found the wall he continued to fumble about with searching for the switch. By the time he located the small panel, his shins felt as though a herd of zebras had danced across them.

The room suddenly burst into illumination, the overhead LED lamps forcing the darkness into small patches of heavily defined shadows. Jacob winced as the light stabbed at his eyes, blinking as he tried to readjust to the sudden brightness. With a sigh, he looked up and grinned at Prudence. She stood directly beneath one of the light panels, its beams shining down on her and giving her a halo effect. In nervousness he giggled. "From here, you look like an angel, Prud!" He sighed again and rubbed at his shins. "Look about these crates. There should be one marked as "Pressure Suits" or something like that. It'll have bulky clothing in it with helmets underneath. The suits will look a bit like those bio-hazard suits they had us in, only thicker."

Righting himself, he began checking a series of lockers along a nearby wall. "I doubt we have much time, Pru, so I'll warn you upfront. The pressure suits are needed to travel in and out of the earth's atmosphere. They're... Well, they have small computers in them that help them adapt to your specific body. Once we find them, strip down bare and slide into one. It'll feel... sort of strange because it's going to conform itself to body very closely." He arched an eyebrow. "Very closely. That's to help manage your body's wastes and temperatures. It'll feel a bit... invasive. Just try to ignore and," he grimaced at the memory, "be glad you're not a man."