The Betwixt Book One (22 page)

‘
I think you have had the greatest lesson you could possibly
receive on the origin on the Twixt.’ Od's statement was cryptic,
but struck at something in my heart like a knife snaking out from
nowhere.

My thoughts were beginning to make sense again, normality
returning like the tantalizing whiff of rain on the
wind.

The origin of the Twixt. I had never
thought . . . but . . . everything
has to begin somewhere. I had not bothered to
ever . . . to even question where the Twixt had come
from. They weren't of this dimension, after all – how could I even
hope to fathom the origin of their existence?

But now the questions were lighting up within me, illuminating
in little flashes, like candles suddenly lit in a dark room. Where
did they come from, what were they . . . and had
they always been Twixts?

My vision was blurry, I could hardly make out more than the
Commander beside me. But it was returning slowly, bringing with it
the details of Jason's suit – the matte finish of the metal, the
shine along the seals, the curve of along the shoulder,
the . . . 

He was facing me, head tilted down towards mine, helmet still
on.

‘
What do we do now?’

I wasn't sure if the question was directed at me, or the room
at large.

What do we do now?

I had to find out more . . . I had to answer
the questions that were lodging themselves in my skin like bullets,
causing pain just to think about
them . . . 

I had to find out what was going on. What were the Twixts? And
more importantly . . . what was the
light?

Chapter 12

Silence returned to the dig site for just a second. It was
that kind of silence where you knew it was directed at you, if that
made any sense. People specifically weren't talking to me. And of
all those people, I noticed one more than anyone else – the good
old Commander.

Everything had obviously just caught up to him – the monster,
me, this general creepy dig site. He may routinely see a hell of a
lot of bizarre in the big wide galaxy – but would this rock the
boat?

‘
Are there any more of those . . . things?’ His
helmet was still on, so I couldn't quite see who he was asking. But
he turned to Doctor Cole, who was standing with her hands on her
hips, staring off down the tunnel that led to the caved-in
chamber.

‘
No.’ She dusted a patch of dirt off the shoulder of her
vest.

‘
Then let’s get the hell out of here.’

Right. Seriously? That was it? They weren't going to poke
around this dig and discover the secrets of this ancient site?
Presumably none of the GAMs, not even the Commander, had ever seen
anything like that creature before – so why throw away the
opportunity to learn more?

‘
Get these people out of here,’ Commander Cole spoke to the
room at large, ‘ship just radioed in. Structural integrity of this
chamber is fluctuating. Move.’

And we did. It was an ordered affair – the GAMs escorting us
up the ladder in single file, pulling us up at the top, and
directing us towards the shuttle parked just outside the circle of
lights on the surface.

I looked up as I crested the ladder. There was the massive GAM
cruiser above us – the air from its engine vents flattening my hair
to my face, even though the thing was several hundred meters up.
The noise was amazing too – pounding at the earth like a 1000
drills all at once.

A GAM at the top of the ladder hooked an arm undermine and
pulled me to my feet, motioning me towards the shuttle with a
silent bowl of his arm.

Between the noise from the cruiser, and the powerful light
from the shuttle trained directly on the mine entrance – I felt
less like I was on some alien moon, and more like I was in one of
the great shipyards of Central.

But then there were the signs of battle. The deep black scorch
marks that seemed to darken every rock and patch of earth around
me. Several of the standing lights, that had once stood in a
perfect circle around the mouth of the dig site, lay on their side,
either mangled into lumps of nearly unrecognizable metal, or just
erupting into sparks – their light tubes leaking onto the scorched
dirt.

It must have been one hell of a fight.

How had the GAM won? How had they even done it? How had they
managed to get here in time? Had they been in the system? Somehow
had forward knowledge? Or did they use the emergency hyperspace
routes – the ones Central controlled that allowed for super fast,
emergency space travel?

It was becoming very apparent to me, as I looked around, that
I really didn't know much about space. I mean, underground digs on
Crag moons with monsters made from light? Tarian Mercenaries
attacking, GAMs streaking across space to save us? I didn't have
any experience with this, nothing to draw on whatsoever.

But I had bigger questions to keep me breathing at the moment.
Because breathing was a tad bit of an issue – I'd left my helmet
back in the chamber, and the air on this moon was thin. Not enough
to kill me and pop me like a bubble in space, but enough to make me
labor for each breath, my lungs hissing and puffing as they pumped
and pumped.

My mother, the Twixts . . . that light.
Whatever would happen when we got on board that GAM Cruiser, I was
going to start finding things out.

They took me straight to the Med Bay. In fact, they took as
all to the Med Bay, which was a huge facility far better stocked
than the one on the station. This was a GAM Cruiser after all, and
they obviously weren't strangers to danger. The GAM didn't just
operate as a galactic security force – patrolling the boarders,
dealing with pirates, and keeping the peace on warring planets.
They were also intended to be the first call in disaster response.
They were equipped and trained to deal with situations just like
this . . . well, maybe not just like
this.

All the dig team, even Crag'tal and Od – they were all being
administered to – each with their own bed and medical scanner.
There was this huge team of doctors and nurses walking amongst them
– clicking their tongues, and asking questions like 'what the hell
were you doing down there?’

And then there was me. I was off in a room at the back of the
Med Bay with my own team of doctors. The CMO – Chief Medical
Officer – was there too. He was a big, burly man with a bustling
mustache that looked more like a cat's tail that had been strapped
under his nose.

He was leaning over me, snapping orders to his staff as he
peered ever so carefully at my eyes.

He didn't say much, which really wasn't comforting. He wasn't
even rubbing his chin, and proclaiming 'wow, what amazing eyes you
have! I've never seen anything like them!’. He was just peering,
unassisted by technology, right at my face, then down at the data
pad in his hands.

‘
Doesn't make sense,’ he grumbled at one point.

‘
What . . . doesn't make sense?’ I asked very
quietly, not wanting to draw his wrath when he was barely an inch
from my nose.

He didn't answer right away, just leaned back and cupped his
chin in his hands. ‘So you can see?’

 
. . . Well that was a strange
question. ‘Yes . . . ah . . . yeah, I
can see . . . ‘

The Doctor walked away, typed something on some panel, and
said something to one of his nurses. Then he stood at the other end
of the room and held up three fingers. ‘How many fingers am I
holding up?’

Was he really doing this? 'Ah, three.’ This was the future! We
had more accurate medical tests than the old ‘how many fingers’ to
rely on.

The Doctor looked vaguely annoyed at this, like he would have
preferred me to answer ‘18’.

‘
Is there . . . is there some kind of problem?’
I was starting to sweat a little, breath a little harder. Had that
light – that strange light from the Twixt – had it done something
to my eyes? Was there a problem? Was I going to go blind or
something?!

The Doctor looked at his pad, sniffed, and then shrugged his
shoulders. ‘Yes and no.’

‘
Well, which is it? Is there a problem or isn't
there?’

‘
Pick one.’

‘
Ah—’

‘
Because you've got two sets of eyes there, as far as I can
tell, and only one of them has the problem.’

What? What in the galaxy was this guy talking about? 'That
doesn't make any sense – I don't understand.’

‘
Hey, neither do I,’ the CMO quipped back.

‘
Two sets of eyes?’ someone said from behind us.

I turned to see the Commander leaning against the door, arms
crossed. ‘She's right, that doesn't make any sense.’

The Commander was out of his heavy, black armor, into his
standard black fatigues. I was starting to realize he didn't have a
large repertoire of colors in his wardrobe. I'd never even seen him
in gray, let alone anything pastel.

The Doctor shrugged again, his huge shoulders stretching
against his light brown uniform top. ‘You don't see this kind of
thing every other day, Commander. In fact, I've never seen it
before. I mean, hell, I've never even seen anything
remotely—’

‘
I'm starting to realize why you don't like doctors, Mini, they
get all vague around you. What are you talking about,
Adams?’

‘
Her DNA is rewriting itself. It's like some kind of
retrovirus, except it isn't a virus . . . As far as
I can tell sections of her own DNA are recombining on their own,
essentially overwriting and changing extant code,’ the Doctor had
his hand up around his mouth as he stared off between us, obviously
deep in thought. ‘I've ticked off the possibilities here,
Commander, and we aren't dealing with a bio weapon, genetic
engineering, even those fancy remote quantum-flux devices I hear
Central are working on.’

‘
Prognosis?’ The Commander didn't uncross his arms, or even
once look my way.

‘
I haven't even gotten that far yet. I'm making this up as I go
along—’

‘
Exactly what I want to hear from the CMO,’ the Commander
didn't smile.

‘
But you aren't going to get anything clearer. Whatever that
light was, well, it wasn't light in the conventional sense. And we
aren't even talking a spectrum shift – I'm not saying it was out of
phase—’

‘
What are you saying then?’ The Commander cut in.

For once, I was finding his direct nature to be refreshing. I
needed him around when I wanted answers from Od – Cole was like a
conversation katana that would just cut through the babble like a
blade through cottage cheese.

‘
Beats me. The short of it is this – Mini over here was already
a half-breed, and I don't need to tell you alien DNA doesn't
combine well with humans. Unstable is the word I'd use to describe
it, others may say it's an accident waiting to happen. Background
cosmic radiation, short time exposure to alpha or beta rays – hell,
even too much sun – can cause irreversible degradation in a half
breed's genetic structure. It's just not robust enough – doesn't
have the same —’

‘
Doctor,’ the Commander uncrossed his arms and patted a neat
fist onto the door frame behind him, ‘I don't have time for science
today. I've got Central breathing down my neck on this one. I'm
going to need the short version around about now.’

‘
Got it, Commander. I don't know what other species you are,
kid.’ The Doctor shrugged my way, ‘but your DNA isn't the same as
ours. In fact, it ain't like any other alien race I've ever
seen.’

I felt supremely uncomfortable, as if I were standing naked in
front of a panel of well-dressed judges ready to pick apart my
history with a precision scanner and tell me exactly what had
always been wrong with me. ‘But I've undergone genetic scans before
– no one's ever told me—’

‘
Wouldn't have used tech like ours, wouldn't have had the
money. But we have to give the Commander the short version here –
and your DNA isn't what's interesting. Whatever light source you
were exposed to on that planet – it's a form of radiation I've
never come across before. Now, for some reason, it only affected
you – the soldiers in that room, as far as I can tell, were immune.
I don't know if it was their armor, but I can't really see that
offering too much protection—’

‘
Are we going to have to be inoculated against radiation
poisoning?’ Cole interrupted, voice so quick it might as well have
been a vocal whip.

‘
No, and here's where it gets interesting. Ordinarily,
radiation can cause damage to DNA, especially when the source is
strong enough to make it through the cell membrane. Whatever kind
of radiation you encountered down there – that bright light you
said came from inside that.. creature. Well Mini here copped eyeful
of it, literally. And it has caused massive genetic change in her
eyes. But that's as far as it goes, for now.’

‘
Not following you, Adams.’ Cole crossed his arms again, still
not moving from the doorway.

The Commander was mirroring my own sentiment exactly, because
I wasn't following a word either. Radiation, cellular damage, DNA
rewriting itself? I was a waitress, not a scientist! I needed the
extremely simple version, preferably with a colorful diagram and
the important words underlined.