The Jovian Legacy (14 page)

“Oh,”
Megan said after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. She and
Jack were still absorbing what they’d just heard. “Is
that how everyone under similar circumstances has coped?”

“Yes
indeed. It is the ultimate healing process,” Mr Griffiths
answered matter-of-factly. “If either of you feel the need for
any repair work, no matter how minor you may think it is, don’t
hesitate to take a visit, okay?”

“Sure,
okay,” Jack responded, not really convinced that it was his cup
of tea. Megan politely smiled and agreed.

For
the rest of the night they mingled with their new friends, who, in
turn, became close friends in the following months to come.

“Everything
is so awesome here,” Megan chirped. “The people are so
friendly and happy and they appear so genuine towards each other.”

“Yes,
they are,” Nancy replied. “They treat everyone like one
big happy family.”

“Isn’t
that going be a little boring?” Jack chipped in. “If
there aren’t any conflicts, don’t people just get bored?”

“Goodness
me, no.” Ben said. “Some people on Earth choose to get
bored, and in turn they are boring to others. People here are
enthusiastic about life. They go out of their way for others.
Negativity is an unknown word in most parts and their aura generates
happiness and self-contentment. There is certainly no tedium amongst
us. People have much to do and are very prosperous. The land is
abundant with natural resources, as you will soon see.”

Chapter 9

I
t
was the first week of Jack’s new job as Assistant Research
Technician at the Thebes Federation of Science. He and Megan had
moved into his parents’ house the previous week.

Megan
chose her career path in the medical field and enrolled herself at
the Supreme Thebes School of Medicine, where she intended to study
the process and development of cloning. After all, she was Jovian’s
first Earth clone. She had an interest (and to her, a right) to find
out how she had been created. Little did she know what lay ahead of
her.

Jack
loved his new job and his keenness and intellect with computers
became apparent. He absorbed information like a sponge and immersed
himself in his work. The computer language was in Egyptian so Jack
had a very stimulating and difficult task to accomplish. He brushed
up on his Egyptian every night, and surprisingly found it easy to
remember. It consequently didn’t take him long to read the
language even though he still couldn’t speak it. He wondered
how it came so easily to him. It was like he’d had it there
all along, subconsciously. He realised then, that the messages he’d
first started receiving at home on his computer had been in Egyptian
when he’d had to use a language converter.

Jack
was assigned to ascertain contact with other citizens on Earth, as he
had been when he was first contacted by Jovian scientists. It was an
enormous project, and his head ached with information at the end of
each day.

One
evening as the family ate their meal that had been prepared by
Antoninus, Jack started to feel a little funny. Megan wore a new
perfume. The fragrance wasn’t strong; in fact it was very
subtle, but the effect that it had on Jack was surprising. Jack had
to excuse himself and retreat into the bathroom. He wasn’t
meant to be feeling this way.

“Megan
is my cousin for God’s sake!” he yelled at his
reflection. But he couldn’t help it, and had to stay in the
bathroom until his hormones had settled down. Megan became concerned
by his absence and went to inspect. Jack had to speak to her through
the door.

“I
don’t know why but when I smelt your perfume it made me feel,
well, you know. Please, can you wipe it off? I feel really
embarrassed about it.”

“Oh...okay...”
Megan answered, feeling a little confused. “Well, I need to use
the bathroom then.”

Jack
gingerly opened the door and Megan could see he was holding his
breath. He slid past her quickly and let her in to wash off the
perfume. Jack walked quickly out into the garden and took in some
deep breaths. After five minutes he was composed enough to return to
the dinner table. Megan returned to the table as well and sat down
feeling embarrassed herself at the upset her new perfume seemed to
have caused.

“I’m
sorry,” she apologised to Jack after dinner. “I purchased
it today from a range of new perfumes that one of my school friends
wanted me to try. She didn’t tell me what sort of effect it
had on people. I know I felt a bit strange when I first tried it,
but I thought it was just me.”

Jack
spoke quietly. “Maybe we should be careful from now on, okay
Megs? Do you remember when Mum was telling us about how the Jovian
people are constantly trying to master the five senses? Well it
seems to me that we’ve just found out about three of them
already. We’ve seen the awesome beauty of this land and we’ve
discovered how their food makes our tastebuds go crazy, and now this.
I think that perfume of yours contained some sort of aphrodisiac.”

“Oh…sorry
Jack, I won‘t wear it again,” Megan promised, feeling
totally ashamed about the whole thing.

Dad
was right,
Jack thought to
himself as he lay in his bed that night staring up at the glass
ceiling and into the starry night sky,
this place certainly
isn’t boring.

He
thought it kind of unfair in a way because the little dinner episode
had put a dampener on their friendship, as now they both felt awkward
in each other’s company. Jack knew he was going to fight it
though, as he loved her so very much.

In
the weeks that followed Megan had become busy at school, which she
found very stimulating and exciting. She was well into her medical
science training programme when she met a good looking young med
student named Timos, Jovian born and bred. Timos wanted to help her
in any way he could. Megan felt flattered, but told herself she
definitely wasn’t going to lead him on. By the same token she
valued his knowledge and experience, and let him assist her on her
assignments. He appeared very patient with her, but she also felt
there was something he wasn’t telling her, or that there was
something he wanted to show her but couldn’t. She did well in
her assignments, due to his help, but she couldn’t help
thinking he had an ulterior motive. She’d already made it
clear to him that their student friendship was purely an educational
one, which he’d accepted. Still, something was niggling at
her.

Megan
always looked forward to coming home. Thankfully, over the last few
weeks the awkwardness had eased and she and Jack once again enjoyed
the close-knit friendship that was so precious to both of them.

There
was never a shortage of discussion around the family dinner table,
with Jack telling them about his journeys through the computer at
home and how, once, he had repeated the event of his birth but
twisted it so that he had been born into a black family. Everyone
laughed when he told them about the doctors’ and nurses’
reactions to his antics in the crib.

Maybe
I could do something like that again one day,
Jack
thought mischievously.

Everyone
enjoyed a high standard of living, but no-one took it for granted.
Megan enjoyed the weekends at the lakeside the most. On longer
weekends (some four days long) they saw more of Thebes when their
limo driver would take them to all the magic spots. They knew they
would never get tired of looking at all the stunning scenery.

As
the months flew by, Jack became very clued up scientifically, and
found the work fascinating. He wanted and needed to find out just
how, when he’d initially been contacted by Jovian scientists at
home in New Zealand, he’d been able to type in a date and
revisit his past. One of his colleagues took him into another
computer room that branched off the main room. The research team had
invented a tool that actually linked a computer program to a person’s
brain via a device that was fixed to the base of their head, and
which extracted information from that person’s memory. It was
then transmitted to a memory card in the computer. It was through
this memory card that, when Jack’s old computer at home was
linked with the research adaptor, Jack’s memory had been
extracted via the virtual reality device.

“Amazing
stuff!” he exclaimed.

His
colleague explained in a typical Jovian scientist’s distinctive
style, “The brain is indeed very complex, that memorises
everything, although humans generally only use a small percentage of
it. Some people have developed their brains more than others through
choice and end up using it for scientific purposes such as this.”

Jack
was permitted to play around with this computer tool when time
allowed, and was excited about the prospect of seeing himself grow up
again. But he also wondered how he’d been able to change
things around when he was born again as a black baby.

His
team had almost established contact with another computer user on
Earth. Jack was so close to cracking it that he worked until the
early hours of the morning, when he saw a snowy image and heard some
American voices. He had a breakthrough! What he didn’t
realise was that it wasn’t just an ordinary computer user, but
a news report. He realised that he had tapped into a television
channel when he saw the letters at the bottom right hand corner of
the screen: CNN. The news reporter was talking about a terrorist
attack:

“Revolutionary
United Front militants kidnapped at least twenty members of the
United Nations Assistance Mission in Makeni, Sierra Leone and
surrounded and opened fire on a United Nations Assistance Mission
facility, according to press reports. The militants killed five UN
soldiers in the attack. Revolutionary United Front militants
kidnapped three hundred United Nations Assistance Mission
peacekeepers throughout the country, according to press reports.”

Jack
felt disturbed that some people actually carried on that way, but
knew it was the very reason he was here - to live a better way of
life without the threat of terrorism or anything of such nature. A
few of the crew had gathered around his computer.

“Sometimes
you have to ask yourself, ‘Why all the killing?’ Is it
just because of one man’s greed for power and wealth? An eye
for an eye that can go on for years and years. These jerks don’t
know diddlysquat about the meaning of life because it’s so
cheap to them,” Jack stated angrily.

His
older colleague answered, “Well, it is what is predicted for
the Old World - outbreaks of war and natural disasters. Also
predicted are new diseases, diseases that mutate rapidly and kill
their victims within a few hours of contracting them.”

“Wow,
you’re a bunch of fluffies. Not!” Jack cried, to the
amusement of his colleagues who hadn’t heard of such a
colloquialism, one asking him what ‘diddly-squat’ meant.

A
workmate patted him on the shoulder, saying, “Well, at least
you and your family won’t have to worry about all of that
here.”

“Yeah,
we’ve been super lucky to have been brought here all right,”
Jack said gratefully.

“Indeed
you are,” his colleague agreed.

Megan
loved her new life on Jovian. She looked forward to getting up in
the morning and getting ready for her day at med school. She knew it
wasn’t because a certain young med student was paying her a
little too much attention. In fact, she had stopped feeling
flattered and had now begun feeling annoyed at his niceness and his
persistently wanting to help. She thought it unnerving. Megan
decided to stop thinking about Timos as it was spoiling her morning,
her enthusiasm for the day, and even had an effect on what she was
going to wear. She thought she’d better play down her clothes
so he wouldn’t be attracted to her. Trouble was, there were no
drab clothes in her wardrobe. Everything was gorgeous and which
suited her perfectly; looking great in anything she put on.

That
morning Timos was waiting for her outside the lecture room. He had
in his hand a parcel wrapped in pretty paper. As Megan approached
him, he smiled his charming, confident smile and, without saying a
word, held out the parcel.

“What’s
this?” Megan blushed, annoyed at herself for doing so.

“It’s
a gift,” Timos answered. “For a special friend, as a
token of appreciation.”

“In
appreciation of what?” Megan asked bluntly.

Timos
smiled innocently. “Just for being you.”

“Timos,
I really can’t accept this,” Megan began. “And I’m
only fifteen by the way, just in case you were thinking I was older.”
Her cheeks were burning.

Timos
did a pretend pout and insisted. “There’s nothing in it,
really, just something I thought you might like. Please. Would you
do me the honour of accepting it?” he said, thrusting the
parcel at her again.

Megan
wasn’t convinced, but with hesitation she let him place the
parcel in her hand and unwrapped it. It was a wooden box with a gold
inscription on the lid in Egyptian writing. When she opened the box
it was lined with red felt fabric and completely empty. She thought
for a moment and remembered the box that Jack had seen in the Supreme
Council of Antiquities art gallery, the one he said was like the one
a friend had given to him for his tenth birthday.