Part 22

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John stood with his back to the cave wall, incredulous. "What the hell was that?!"

"S-som-m.....vessel....Oshana?" Chiana blinked realizing their connection had somehow changed. She felt alone.

John's eyes widened. "Oh crap. You're stuck?!"

Chiana tried to quell the panic but the usual means such as controlling breath or even hyperventilating were irrelevant. Finally it tore out in soundless screams. She ran into the abstract woods, but dark was all she was met with. The unreal shapes echoed the emptiness she ran in, seeking to find something of herself where she was not.

Images of herself seen through another's eyes rippled back at her in pools between stands of incomplete ghosts of trees. In one, she could see herself as a companion subverted to him, a figure half his height walking at his heels like a lost little sister. In another she was ugly and filthy, cavorting as if desperate but unlikely to seduce anything into its muddy pool. She yelled at it, willing it to shreds and running again. Plunging through the dark, a glow from the corner of her eye lingered until she looked to it. The pool she saw between two carved trees resembled a heart and glowed with unmistakable beauty that reached into her.

Chiana approached, her mouth left open, her elbows back and her steps cautious. She stared into the image and it felt like she were drinking water after a great thirst. The image lingered on her mouth, lax and supple. Then the close-up moved to her eyes, deep and searching. The vision moved slowly along her sensually swaying body, the sense of love in the way it fixated on her was obvious. The image of her was just as she was the last time John had been with her.

The loving glow said he thought better of her, but despite all it meant to her, the fear returned in a surging wave. Everything dissolved into black fear and she ran, passing through unseen objects that tore bits of her away. John tried yelling when he at last found her. She clutched her hands to her ears and screamed but didn't slow down. Her screams tore through his mind while unseen objects she ran through dissolved her.

John reached her and grabbed her but it was only a symbolic touch now. It was only a tide of hard realization that stopped her from breaking reason beyond repair. A slightly visible patch of black sand beach lay at her feet, nothing ahead in its waters and nothing behind but the unseen regions she'd ran through. The waves breaking across the sands under her at first undermined the footing, leaving her unsteady, but as she stood, it gradually solidified. When she could stand in the tide, she looked down to find she was whole again in his arms.

"Shh-shhh hey...." he tried soothing as much as he could. "Little nutsy'll be back for you, you know it. Hey" he lifted her face to look at him, but he felt more like he was Bela Legosi holding his hand out to mesmerize her gaze. Her attention was raveled by her anxiety but she felt closer. Her face lifted to gaze close to his face. "You're not going to be lost. You're with me. Now....better, little girl?"

Chiana nodded once, looking at his chin. "Party" she nodded again.

"Right."

"Left" Chiana corrected, gesturing to the tunnel that now stood at his left.

"You're right" John took her forearm and led them into the tunnel. "My left is right."

"Right" Chiana nodded with a giggle.

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"You don't suppose Tannac would do anything rash?" Perkunas asked. He got the look he deserved from Bursamen and nodded. "How do you think she would try to get in?" He handed Bursamen a drink.

Bursamen held up a hand to refuse. "However unlikely, it could be that she eluded me."

"Not unlikely at all, if we propose she simply saw you coming and turned sideways" Perkunas took a drink. He squinted his distaste at the drink and gestured for Bursamen to open another crate.

"A pity the crowd is larger than we'd anticipated" Bursamen said while opening the crate. "You having to remain out of view."

"Sampling Urg? Hardly a chore. If anything drastic should occur I can easily explain my presence as inspecting the area of civic concern." Perkunas tried another bottle from the newly opened crate. "With Tannac getting involved, something drastic is just short of guaranteed."

Bursamen grinned, easing his obvious impatience. "Either way, our contacts have arranged a Sebacean sympathizer to aid me. As soon as the Sebacean arrives, I'll be able to discover the extent of the situation.....and perhaps what drastic things will occur before it occurs."

"Piquant yet.....airy" Perkunas described the new bottle. "Good vintage Urg. If things go too badly, I know a good way to go right here" he raised the bottle.

"We'll leave you to it then" a voice spoke from a door to the warehouse. Bursamen held his pulse pistol at the ready until the voice stepped forward, proving to be a Sebacean woman in black and loaded with plenty of equipment. "You are Bursamen? I'm your assistance for this operation." She smiled functionally.

Bursamen stepped forward with his pistol drawn and aimed at her face. She didn't flinch. She took out a sort of chip. Bursamen took it and handed it back to Perkunas without moving his gun or gaze from the sebacean.

"Yes" Perkunas answered, reading the information. "Orren Nus, former militant, Clarticies region."

Bursamen put down his gun and smiled tightly. "Welcome....assistant."

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"Well this place looks familiar" John looked around the library.

"It does?" Chiana looked around, down at herself in a french maid outfit that looked to be made for the size she used to be. She gave John an odd look then looked around the library again.

"Library. Storeroom of all my useful and useless knowledge, Pip."

"Just yours? Can't be too big then" she smiled, slyly looking around.

He looked to her, and stayed looking, admiring the outfit.

"You have parties in here, or did we just take another frelling detour?" Chiana walked right up to him, a little annoyed.

"News to me, Pip. News. Oh yeah, let's check the N aisle." John led her to the N aisle while watching the skirt she was walking out of sliding excruciatingly slowly to her thighs, revealing the tiny lace thong underneath.

"So how do you find things in here?" she asked, bending forward and side to side to look down each aisle they pass.

"Everything seems to be organized by topics, title or author I guess. Heck, try a keyword, it's a mess. P for Pop Culture, got its own aisle you know" he rambled on. His attention was fixed more on her. The thong, hooked on one hip, wasn't doing a bit of good. "S for s-e-x, yeah that's got it's own aisle too. Good thing they put in some comfy couches for everyone loitering around that aisle. Q for that odd guy in Star Trek" he gestured down toward the Q aisle. "Some aisles are kinda buried in all the dust."

"Frell where's all the dust coming from?" she didn't seem to notice the skirt down around her knees, focused on lifting some dust off a shelf with her finger.

"I thought...." John's attention drifted from her for a moment.

"Thought what?" Chiana blinked at him.

"I don't know, I think it was all in my head."

"Crichton. All this is in your head" Chiana pointed out, coming right up to his side and tapping his head. "Cept me."

"Hallelujah" he remarked.

"So you wanna tell me what you thought?" she asked, looking at his neck but smirking because she knew he was looking down at her breast.

"Ah" he scratched the back of his ear, still admiring the view. "I thought, well one time I was walking the aisles, and I thought I saw some creepy sinister Harvey variant with a machine making dust lurking way back in one of them...."

"Yeah mm-m" Chiana tapped the side of her head "the, the Harvey- now, now that I've seen him he-he reminds me of s-something, something else."

John scowled. Chiana's inklings seemed to make sense for him as well. Enough that he decided to keep the thought in mind. But a brand new book suddenly appeared on an M aisle shelf, catching his glance down the aisle. "Oh crap" he ran into the M aisle, yanking Chiana in after him by the tiny lace thong strap. "Making a memory!"

"What?!" Chiana hissed when they came to a stop in front of an M aisle shelf. John looked preoccupied staring at the half of thong waist strap that had ripped off in his hand. The other half still hung on the hip so she looked back to him.

"We got to hide this."

Chiana yanked the strap back and dropped it in her bodice.

"Not that, this" John blew the glowing gold aura off the new book and pulled it from the shelf. "Damn anyone can see anything I keep track of. Harvey can see anything I keep track of!"

"Ah yeah" Chiana supposed, looking at him like she was waiting for his point. "He lives in your head" she tapped the side of his head again.

"Yeah I got it" John hid the book in his boxers.

"Oooh no one'll see that" Chiana sarcastically observed. "Lemme-" she pulled John's pink and red heart boxers out and reached in. She gasped when she grabbed the book. She saw what he'd seen and felt what he'd felt. Out of the corner of his eye, John had seen someone who looked like Harvey at the dusty, darkened end of an aise, holding a machine that was spewing out more dust. Sudden connections formed in her mind and she remembered that Harvey was just a copy of somebody.

"What?" he asked, alarmed by her expression.

"I s-saw everyth- I can, can get what you've known by touching th-the-" Chiana stopped to think of a name for the books. She held up the book and ran the other hand around it. Finally she looked back to him brightly. "Primitive ground wood bundles!"

"Books, Pip. Wait-what?! You touched the book and got my memory in a T1 download?! Aussie Zoe!" he scrunched his eyes shut. "Stay out of the "Old Girlfriends" book?" he willed. "And the diary too, if I got one....oh man I think I did when I joined the program....whatever I was doing....oh crap. You know, just-just maybe you better sit down and we'll have a nice talk-"

"No-no, go, go to that party, I'll find....mm anything that'll help, just keep whoever distracted" Chiana scurried from the aisle. John followed, hooked her arm and steered her away from the S aisle. "Start over at the W aisle, Harvey's tried to get me over there."

"Right" she said, turning the right way to get to the W ailse this time. She leaned into him and he swept her into a kiss. With no genuine contact, it felt numb except for the warmth from sharing the gesture of affection. She sighed out sharply but rubbed her bangs across his cheek before turning away. John tapped her rump sharply. Chiana jumped. Without any contact, she didn't notice his hand but felt the intention slapping her just like his hand had. Chiana looked back at him with a smirk. John snickered and walked into the N aisle.

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