A Plain Jane Book One (26 page)

‘
Lucas Stone, I do not believe it
is safe for you here anymore,’ the Director walked up to him, his
head angled towards Jane, but one of his pincers pointing right at
Lucas.

Lucas just
nodded.

‘
I will load the details of my
contact into your armor. Then, though it may contravene many
Galactic Force protocols, I suggest you get in your ship and you
run,’ the Director finally turned his head around to face
Lucas.

‘
But we need to find out what is
going on first. We need to find out why Adam . . .
why he did that. For all we know, he works for Shadow One, and he’s
actually on our side,’ Priya clutched a hand to her chest as she
spoke uncharacteristically emphatically.

Lucas couldn't help but
narrow his eyes as he stared back at her. Shadow One was the
intelligence division of the Galactic Force. The hush-hush,
only-ever-whispered-about intelligence service that had agents
scattered throughout the Galaxy in an attempt to find out
information wherever and whenever necessary.

‘
Maybe . . . ' Priya slid her gaze
warily towards Jane and then shot it back to Lucas,
‘he . . . ’ it was obvious she did not want to
say it, not in front of Jane at least.

Lucas knew exactly what
Priya was trying to suggest. Jane was a threat, a risk. Adam,
knowing this, had tried to deal with her as best he
could.

Lucas crossed his arms
firmly.

He didn't have any solid
evidence to prove his suspicion, but he just . . .
he couldn't believe Jane was the bad one here. Maybe it was her
personality, maybe it was her genuine surprise at the situation,
and maybe it was something more, but Lucas was having trouble
concluding Jane was the real enemy. Also, he’d seen Specimen 14
back on Earth, and Lucas had absolutely no trouble in imagining
that abomination was the genuine enemy.

‘
Lucas Stone, I do not believe we
have much time, I have just received several more communiqués from
the Galactic Force asking us to send evidence to prove that we have
disintegrated specimen . . . Jane. None of them bear
the proper watermark, and I believe all of them are faked,’ the
Director said as his pincers clicked across the console.

Apparently Specimen 14
wasn’t going to be so easily fooled.

‘
Lucas, we still don't—’ Priya
tried.

‘
It doesn’t matter, Priya; I’ve
made up my mind,’ he said clearly. ‘Jane,’ he turned to her, ‘we
have to go.’

‘
Lucas,’ Priya tried again, ‘this
is just foolish. You don't know—’

It was true, he didn't know,
but that didn't stop him from putting up a hand. ‘Just leave
it.’

‘
I can clear your ship from
here,’ the Director said, ‘I can also upload information to your
armor.’

‘
Do it,’ Lucas snapped
quickly.

He was aware that Jane
kept on watching him, and she had a very careful look on her face.
As a tingle rushed up his back, he got the distinct impression that
the implant was most definitely watching him as well. If it didn't
like what he did, if it didn't like what he said, if it seemed for
one moment that Lucas was about to side with Priya, he knew the
implant would act. And he could now appreciate there would be no
stopping it.

While
on many levels Priya was right and Lucas
should aim to keep Jane here while they studied her more, he knew
that wouldn't work. Any threat to Jane, and the implant would whisk
her away. If Lucas wanted to find out what was going on, he had to
stay with Jane, and that meant trusting her, or at least never
acting against her.

Lucas couldn’t put all of this
into words and simply tell Priya, so he just shrugged his shoulders
and shook his head. ‘I have to stay with Jane,’ he
managed.

Out of the corner of his
eye he saw Jane take a small breath, a look of relief brightening
her cheeks.

‘
I have completed the upload to
your armor, Lucas Stone, though I must warn you, the computer has
found abnormalities in your living matrix: something has altered
your implant, increasing its memory storage exponentially,’ the
Director let out a puff of air and it was clear that he was
surprised.

The Paran database. While
he’d been aware the Artifact had made changes to his armor, he
hadn’t guessed it was that significant. There was no time right now
to find out more though.

The computer suddenly gave
several warning beeps.

The Director made a strange
hissing and clicking noise. ‘The Galactic Force, it seems, is
attempting to take remote control of this computer processor using
Security Protocol A 39. I suggest you leave right now, Lucas Stone,
as I do not know how long we have.’

Priya, giving him one
final glance, turned and ran up to one of the consoles next to the
Director, and the two of them started to type
frantically.

Then Lucas turned to Jane. ‘We
have to go.’

She nodded.

They ran.

Chapter 15

Jane

There was a lot happening,
and it was all happening in a very short space of time. Of course
Jane didn't know much about adventure, but she still suspected that
ordinary people did not go through so much in barely 24 hours.
Which was an incredibly uncomfortable thought, because it confirmed
that perhaps Jane wasn't normal after all.

. . . Wasn't normal. It was such an
unpleasant thing to think about; she’d labored under that belief
her entire life. So what was happening to her felt like the
greatest injustice in the world. Nothing like this could happen to
her, nothing like this
should
happen to her.

She wanted to return home
and try to forget about it, but she knew Lucas wouldn’t let
her.

He was certainly turning
out to be different from the person she’d once hated – the person
the rest of the Galaxy assumed him to be. Yes, some things were
correct: Lucas Stone certainly did like to save people, but he
wasn't arrogant about it or even triumphant. In fact, it simply
appeared to fatigue him. He went from one save to the next, with no
rest, with no recuperation, and with no celebration. And it seemed
the longer he stayed with her, the more he would be doing just
that. She could tell that he was tired. His shoulders drooped
whenever he was talking to her, his head leaning to the side not in
apparent interest, but because he clearly couldn't muster the
energy to hold himself straight.

She wondered how long he
could keep on doing it for. She got away without sleeping, but she
knew enough about humans to know that they couldn't.

Yet with disaster after
disaster happening all around her, she knew that Lucas would not
let himself rest. Another thing the fan supplements had gotten
right: he was determined to the point of exhaustion. It didn't come
from any grandiose self-belief though, he simply seemed to try to
solve whatever problem was in front of him without any ability to
let himself rest until the solution came to hand.

He was now sitting next to
her in the command chair, his palm squarely docked with the
console, his head leaned forward. He still had his armor on, and he
hadn’t yet switched his helmet to transparent. Perhaps he was
trying to catch some quick shut-eye underneath there, and didn't
want Jane to notice. Though she really doubted it.

She sat in the chair next
to him, her hands clutched firmly in her lap, her lips pressed
together, and her gaze settling on some innocuous point on the view
screen.

The ship was now traveling
at BL, beyond light speed, and the image on the view screen, though
mostly black, sometimes speckled with sudden flashes of light, the
twisted view of distant stars racing past them at unbelievable
speeds. Though Jane had never seen it in real life, she had
certainly seen simulations of it before.

He hadn’t said anything to
her since they’d boarded the ship and had un-docked from the
Central Shipyards.

In fact, he’d simply
synthesized her a glass of water, handing it to her in silence,
then he’d immediately docked his glove, sitting in the command
chair and not moving once.

She was starting to wonder
whether he was angry at her, or in fact whether he was starting to
have questions, probably very valid questions about whether he
should help her at all.

The evidence was mounting
against her. She had overheard the Director when he’d said they’d
received communications from the Galactic Force asking whether they
had disintegrated her yet. Worse than that, he’d referred to her as
Specimen Jane.
Specimen Jane
.
She had seen enough low-quality holo adventures to know that
whenever the scientists and good guys referred to something as a
specimen, they almost always ended up killing it.

Jane found herself
twisting her fingers around and around each other. It was a move
that reminded her of what the Director had done immediately after
Adam Thomson had tried to attack her. She couldn't stop it; she
seemed too nervous, filled with a horrible tension.

Who could blame her? She
had no idea whether Lucas trusted her any more, no idea what was
after her, and no idea what would come next. She was starting to
get the impression that the thing in her head knew exactly what was
going on though. The . . . the
thing . . . had acted on instinct, keeping her safe
while Adam Thomson had tried to cut right through her with an
electro blade. Even if Jane didn't have anything to rely on, she
seemed to be able to rely on
it.
While it was insidious, and could control her body and
mind, it still acted to preserve her, and that was
something.

Jane gave a stuttering
sigh and rested further back in her chair. She greatly wanted this
adventure to be over now; she'd had enough of it.

That finally managed to get
Lucas' attention, and he turned her way. ‘Are you okay?’

He always asked that
question, it was as if he couldn't think of anything else to say to
her. Though, to be fair to him, it was a very pertinent and valid
question considering the current situation. She just nodded, and
then shook her head, and then nodded again. She was thoroughly
confused by everything. And yeah, she kept on thinking about Priya.
The way that Priya had acted so familiarly with Lucas, and, more
importantly, the way she’d begged Lucas not to trust Jane, and
certainly not to go anywhere with her.

‘
We will figure it out. We will
head to the contact, and then . . . ’ Lucas
trailed off.

The contact. The Paran. As
soon as Jane thought that word, a stab of pain crossed through her
head and she winced.

She could see that Lucas
suddenly clutched his free hand into a fist.

‘
Everything will be okay,’ he
settled on saying again, and it was apparent that he thought it was
safer to simply repeat that over and over rather than try to
discuss the details of where they were going and who they were
going to see.

It
didn't want her to know. It
didn't want her to think about it. Yet it seemed to be letting her
follow through with the plan.

It was very, very
confusing.

Jane wasn't going to let
herself be completely confused by it though; she was starting to
realize that if she thought very carefully, she could think around
it. If she didn't use the ‘I’ word or the ‘P’ word, she didn't get
the stabbing pain. As long as she thought in general terms about
where they were going and what they were going to do, it didn't
seem to object.

As she sat there, fingers
twisting around each other, her face still angled up towards the
view screen and not towards Lucas, she finally made a decision. She
was going to do everything she could to find out what was going on.
Though she still wanted to scream at herself occasionally that she
was far too normal for any of this, she was going to push past that
and she was going to figure it out. It was no doubt going to be
incredibly hard, but she was going to do it nonetheless.

Jane had never had cause
to be determined in her life: things had happened to her easily,
she had never faced any problems, and by and large everything had
been comfortable and, yes, normal. Though she’d never had any
family, she had never been without help, money, or some form of
protection and housing. When she had needed a job, she’d fallen
into one. When she’d needed a house, she’d found one. When she’d
needed schooling, she’d received it. There had never been trials or
obstacles and Jane had never found herself in a situation where
she’d needed to push herself.

Now she was no longer that
lucky; for the first time in Jane's life she was finding out that
she needed a great deal of determination to get through
this.

So Jane sniffed
again.

‘
You should get some rest,’ Lucas
suddenly said, probably thinking that her sniffs were not of the
determined variety but were of the incredibly tired and fatigued
kind.

She turned to him and
shook her head. ‘I don't think so. I think
you
should get some rest. I don't need sleep and I'm
not tired,’ she said very forthrightly.