Chapter 27

Morning came much too early for Katherine Gold.  It had been the first rest she’d had since allowing Evan to touch his mark to hers.  Since that instant, she’d been dragged from one strange and frightening room to the next with hardly a moment of peace in between to get her mind around the reality in which she now found herself.  Katherine slept like a stone.

What brought her out of unconsciousness was an irregular clicking of something metal and the soft shuffling of feet from the next room.  Just to make sure that the day before had been an unfortunate dream, she quickly popped open her eyes fully expecting to go back to sleep seeing that she was in her bedroom in her home in her solar system.  This was a mistake.

Her bleary eyesight gave way to seeing different walls and different furniture.  This was not her bedroom.  She closed her eyes as her heart sank and her adrenaline rose.  There was no going back to sleep.  This was not a nightmare.  She needed to dig in and see what she could do to find and convince someone in power to send her back to what was familiar.

The answer to what was making the clicking and shuffling noises was quickly answered as she exited her room.  There was her husband drifting through the room, dutifully pouring over some illuminated device.  Periodically, he would tap on it when he was conjuring up a thought.  When Evan turned suddenly to the corner table, his eye caught Katherine standing in the bedroom doorway.  He stood up straight while his reflexes and his eyesight came into agreement that Katherine’s presence was not a threat.

“You startled me,” he said.

“You’re up,” Katherine said.

“That would imply I’ve been to sleep.”

“You haven’t slept?” Katherine mussed her hair.  It was due for a shampoo.  She couldn’t imagine that was likely to happen for a while.

“You know how it is,” Evan said setting the device on the table and shoving his hands in his pockets, “I’ve been working solo for so long, I’ve only had to work with the plans as they come.  When Gabe was alive, we never worked a case together and I haven’t worked on a team since, well, probably back to my army days.  I don’t want to be the weak link.”

Katherine made her way further into the room.  “These aliens don’t drink coffee do they?”

“No,” Evan apologized, “but I found this.”  He waved his hand at a nearby platter what passed for food.  “I don’t know what it is, but it eats pretty good, and I haven’t been sleepy.”

Katherine furrowed her brow and slunk into a chair across the room from the food.  She didn’t trust it.  The items on the platter were royal blue and with the shape of a shiny muffin.  Mixed in with the muffins were gray orbs.  She realized she might die of starvation long before she died at the hands of an angry dictator.  Katherine closed her eyes and began masagging the stiffness out of her neck.

“Do you want to go over the plan?”

“No.”

“Because you’ve never handled a prisoner before and you’ll want —”

“Who says I’m going to handle a prisoner?  Just because that strange little man and said what he said does not mean I have to do anything.  Last I checked, I’m still an American and I have rights.”

Katherine heard Evan’s sigh and knew what was coming.

“Why do you have to drag anchor?”

“Why do you have to be a puppy anytime danger is involved?”  She surprised herself with how quickly the anger flowed out of her.  But after all, he was the one who brought her here, he was the one who had put her life in jeopardy, he was the one who had woken her up with his careless noises.

“Listen, sweetheart, I’m not doing anything; you wouldn’t want someone doing for you if you were in a fix.”

Katherine hated it when he called her sweetheart.  He only did it when frustrated and didn’t want to yell, but it was always tinged with a hint of disdain.  She laughed, “I’m only in a fix because of you.”  Katherine no longer needed coffee.  Her surging emotions were doing a fine job on that front.  “What I want is to be home right now where things are normal.  This is not, nor has it ever been, the kind of life I want.  I’m not made for war, for spying, rescuing damsels.  You seem to enjoy that.  Fine.  Enjoy it.  But leave me out of it.”

“Katherine,” Evan began.  If there was one thing she hated more than how he said sweetheart, it was how he said her name when he was riled up.  Katherine dug her fingernails into the armrests of her chair as Evan continued, “there is a woman who needs our help, whom I promised to help.”

“Yes,” Katherine said, “as you said.  As you’ve said so many times.  And as I’ve said you can go and be the savior of the world, just leave me out of it.”

“But you heard Amnon yesterday.  This plan needs all of us if it going to work.”

“My guess is he’s a smart person and he or Blondie would figure something else out if we weren’t here.”

“The only reason there is a plan is because we’re here.  We need to rescue Lillian, Katherine.”

“No we don’t.  This is their fight, not ours.”  She held up a hand, “Please don’t remind me of your blood oath to that woman one more time.  Every time you say it, I just want to scream.  All the time you make this grand speech about how you are to help out the downtrodden and oppressed.  That you, you, Evan Gold of Athens, Kansas, have been specially called out to raise up the disadvantaged from the muck and mire of human selfishness.  But I would like you point out to you and you sit so straight on your white horse in your gleaming armor, that Princess Lillian does not sound downtrodden.  She was able to see into the future.  She was able to plan thoughts in your head.  She was able to change from a floating, glowing sphere into a glowing woman.  Can you do any of that?”  Katherine put her hands on her hips.  “Can you?  It would be so great if you could.  Show me.  Because if you can’t, I don’t see how you are the kind of rescuer she needs.  And before you remind me that she chose you for this high calling, let me suggest that that choice might say something about her wisdom in finding the right people to help her out of trouble.”

Katherine could tell that she’d gone too far.  She saw the vein in the middle of Evan’s forehead bulging, but she didn’t care.  Someone needed to speak some sense to him.  Someone needed to take him down a peg.  Evan picked up the device from the table and threw it across the room with such force and speed that it became stuck halfway into the wall.  She’d won, which was all she needed to live on for a while.  She’d spoken what had to be said for a long time and he would have to wallow in it.  Katherine sat in her chair and watched the morning sun rise over the unfamiliar horizon fury flowing through her body.

She heard Evan attempt counterarguments.  It was the typical reaction of losers to keep the fight going after it was lost.  He called her apathetic, selfish, and cold, but she refused to let him get to her.  He was the one who was wrong in this, not her.  He was the one who had chosen a glowing alien over her, and it didn’t matter what accusations he leveled at her, nothing would be worse than that.

After several minutes of him trying his best to get past her defenses, Katherine heard Evan give up. “Finally,” she thought.  Then there were heavy steps leaving the room and the openeing and closing of the front door.  She was alone.  Finally.  The rage and fury left her with one exhale.

She stood, not sure how she would spend her day of house arrest.  Katherine noticed the device impaled into the wall still glowed.  She was impressed, assumed it would have broken, and went to take it out of the wall.  On it, she saw the inside of the courtroom.  In the background was a panel of three people in red robes sitting behind a tall, curved desk.  Facing them, she saw Princess Lillian’s flowing locks.  Lillian sat pencil-straight and relaxed shoulders.  Even only looking at the back of her, Katherine could feel the dignity of this woman.  Try as she might, she couldn’t work up the feelings of disgust she knew she should have for this person, this person who’d stolen her husband’s devotion.  Looking at Lillian, Katherine knew it wasn’t true, but she couldn’t let herself dwell on that right then.

Still, she couldn’t take her eyes off the Princess.  That is until a past nightmare strolled into her view.  The man in black had put the mark on her chest to begin with.  Katherien’s stomach balled up at the sight of him.  He placed his hand between the red robes, and Lillian placed his fist over his heart and opened his mouth.  It was then that sound started to emit from the device, and she once again heard the voice of Eye Patch.