Entry 5:

Entry Five:

            “Victor!” Gavin shook his hand vigorously. “Just the man I was looking for.”

            “It’s safe to assume you’re the rescue party, then?” Victor replied. “It would seem as if you were the one needing to be rescued.

            “That’s why I’m here,” Gavin told him, somewhat abashedly.

            “From what I hear, Jackie has already had the others released. They should be on their way now with a police escort. No hard feelings, I hope? It’s a fairly standard policy to detain all illegals. Why, if it hadn’t been for Jackie they may have put you up on charges, including poaching,” Victor smiled at him with pearly white teeth. The man looked almost too perfect. He was dressed plainly enough in a white shirt and black slacks, but he had movie-star good looks. He was tall with a tan complexion and deep blue eyes and brown hair.

            “Do you hear that, Gav?” she leaned on Victor’s shoulder and chewed loudly. “You’d be getting poked in the pokey if it wasn’t for me.”

            “That still doesn’t excuse what you did,” Victor informed her so she would know he had not forgotten her indiscretion. “I’ve already made a considerable donation to the precinct and I expect you to publicly apologize.”

            “That’s not going to be happening,” Jackie laughed at him. “Come on, Gavin, let me show you around,” she grabbed Gavin by the collar and yanked him away, despite his protests.

            “Where do you think you’re taking him?” Victor shouted after her.

            “My bedroom. Where else?” Jackie gave him a wry smile.

            “I really should be…” Gavin didn’t really know what he was supposed to be doing.

            “Please be joking, Jackie!” Victor called out after her.

            “I’m not!” she shouted back as they went through the side door. The entered a tall, arched hallway. “This is the palace, yada-yada-yada. Over there is a thing,” she pointed at a tasteful painting on the wall of a flower field. “Over there is another thing,” she pointed vaguely in the direction of a column. “Ignore these people, especially Percy. Nobody likes Percy,” she said as they passed a group of servants cleaning. They all bowed to Jackie as she walked by. Percy didn’t act the least bit upset by her taunting, as if he were used to it. The entered the main hall, which was round with a fountain in the middle and two sets of staircases leading up along the walls. The ceiling was a glass dome from which a crystal chandelier hung. “Up here,” she practically dragged him up the marble steps to the second floor. The walkway on top overlooked a sunroom, but she led him instead down another hall. In short order, they arrived at her room.

            There was a faint smell of perfume in the air, although Jackie herself did not smell like it. He suspected the servants were responsible for the room’s immaculate condition, as Jackie used her toes to take off her shoes and kick them across the room, where they left a dirty imprint on the wall before landing on the carpet. She unzipped her vest and tossed it disdainfully over a chair. “You’re a lucky boy,” she told him. “I don’t usually let anyone up here. What’s with your hair, by the way?” she asked him as she began to adjust hers in the oval mirror she had against one wall. The room was painted a violet colour, with dark red carpets. It didn’t particularly go together, but he imagined she liked it that way. There was a holoscreen that almost took up the entire wall opposite her large, round bed with a white headrest carved to look like waves splashing. There was a cat lounging on a matching, miniaturized bed in the corner beside it. Portraitures painted by an amateurish hand hung on the spare space on the walls. A window overlooked the gardens below, and a breeze blew in.

            “My hair?” he asked.

            “Yeah, it’s like you’ve never had a haircut,” she said. “You’re like some wildman out of the woods.”

            “Well I haven’t ever had a haircut,” Gavin confirmed that this was the case. “Do you know what I am?”

            “A ginger?” she replied, looking at him in his reflection in the mirror.

            “No, a Generate,” Gavin said.

            “Of course I know what a Generate is, you dolt,” Jackie laughed at him. “How could I not? So you really were born yesterday, weren’t you? They didn’t even bother to give you your first haircut. I’d do it myself right here, but I’m enjoying your hair too much.”

            “Why did you bring me up here?” Gavin asked, looking around. “I’m supposed to check in with Victor.”

            “You did! Mission accomplished,” she saluted him broadly. “Report back to base for debriefing! Victor’s not going anywhere,” she assured him. “He barely leaves the palace grounds these days. My mom likes to keep a close eye on him.”

            “Well…” Gavin tried to think of an excuse, but nothing was forthcoming. There wasn’t much he could do without the rest of his crew. “Not to be rude, but who are you, anyway? Everyone on the planet seems to know who you are and all I know is your first name.”

            “Jackeline Patron,” she feigned a curtsy. “Or should I say the new Mrs. Jackeline Dales?” she teased him.

            “I don’t know what you’d want with me. I’m nothing special really,” Gavin blushed a little.

            “You’re so modest, but don’t worry. I can think of lots of things to do with you,” she winked at him.

            “Are you Royalty?” he sat down on the edge of her bed. The cat came over and he reached down absently to pet it.

            “No, I live in a palace because I’m a chicken farmer. What do you think, Gavin?” she gave him a look, then turned her attention back to her hair.

            “I don’t know what to think,” Gavin admitted with a sigh. “This is all a bit much.”

            “Don’t feel down,” she fluttered over to him and sat down on the bed beside him. “I never do, and look how well I’m doing for myself.” Gavin couldn’t help but notice how close she was. She was looking at his eyes oddly, which made him self-conscious.

            “Am I interrupting?” Victor was standing in the doorway. Gavin blushed although he’d done nothing wrong.

            “Gavin was just proposing,” Jackie told him as she threw her arms around Gavin’s shoulders, “and I said yes!”

            “Jackie…” Victor winced as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you.”

            “What, you don’t think I’d make a good wife?” she joked.

            “This man is an ambassador from my dimension, Jackie,” he explained rationally. “Could you imagine how this will look in his report with you busting him out of prison at gunpoint and then trying to seduce him in your bedroom?”

            “You’re right! They’ll probably want to move their entire operations over here,” Jackie said.

            “If Moriss can’t keep you contained as your chaperone, I don’t know who can,” Victor slumped against the doorframe.

            “Moriss can’t even keep her adam’s apple contained.inside her collar,” Jackie said. “What hope did you think she’d have with me?”

            “We’ll discuss this later,” Victor promised. “Right now, Gavin should come downstairs with me. I think the others are arriving at the front gate.”

            “Oh who cares about them? I looked their profiles up already, and Gavin’s the only decent looking one,” she held up his wrist unit.

            “Please just come with me,” Victor pleaded with Gavin.

            “I really should go,” Gavin said imploringly to Jackie.

            “I’m not letting you out of my sight,” Jackie told him as she got up and pulled him by his collar once more. “We’ll have to get you a leash later. Together, they went back down the stairs with the cat tailing them.

            They waited in the main hall as the door opened, and the police led in the rest of his crew. Officers trailed in behind them with their gear, which they deposited at the side by the stars. Once arranged, the police bowed to Jackie.

            When Kylie entered, her eyes immediately met Victors and she dashed towards him. Throwing out her arms, she embraced him as he stood still. “You’re alive!” she declared as she held her hands against his cheeks and drunk him in. Victor smiled back at her, but looked uncomfortable.

            “Victor, who is this woman?” Jackie demanded, sounding truly angry for the first time.

            Victor ignored her for the moment as she greeted Kylie. He held her arms by the elbows and said softly, “It’s been too long. I hadn’t realized you were with them, Kylie.”

            “I came just for you,” Kylie told him, her eyes glistening. “I thought we’d lost you.”

            “I’m still alive,” Victor assured her, then surveyed the rest of her crew. Moriss stood at the back of the group, looking a little dejected. “Why did it take so long?”

            “Everything is chaos back home,” she told him hurriedly. Jackie was looking angrier for every second she was ignored, but only Gavin paid her any mind. “There was a biological attack that killed tens of thousands. I lost my entire crew,” as she confessed, she burst into tears. “They’re all dead, Victor. Darren, Kofi… Every last one of them.”

            Victor paled. “Who did this?” he asked carefully. He reached out to wipe a tear from her face. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her until her sobs subsided.

            “No one knows,” Kylie said as leaned his head against his broad shoulder.

            “Victor!” Jackie practically screeched. “I’m going to ask again, who is this woman?”

            “Who am I? Who are you?” Kylie didn’t appreciate being interrupted, and she was suddenly suspicious of the raging woman by Gavin.

            “I’m his daughter!” she shouted back at her.

            Kylie blinked, confused at the woman then drew back from Victor. “What?” she searched Victor’s face for the truth. “How is that possible?”

            “You have to understand, Kylie,” he said evenly. “We were trapped here for a very long time, and we gave up hope of ever going home. A part of me will always love you and the time we spent together, but I moved on with my life.”

            “What?” Kylie balled up her fists. “Victor, you were only gone two weeks! How could you have a daughter? Have you been cheating on me, some how?”

            Victor looked at her, perplexed. “Kylie? Are you feeling okay? I can send for a medic.”

            “I don’t need a medic,” Kylie insisted.

            “I think you’re going to need one in a minute,” Jackie threatened her as she balled up her own fists. “You stay away from my father!”

            “Stop it, Jackie,” Victor shot back at her. “Kylie, please explain to me again. How long do you think it’s been since we last saw each other?”

            “I told you, it’s been two weeks,” Kylie wiped at her eyes. “Please just tell me what’s going on!”

            “It hasn’t been two weeks,” Victor shook his head.

            “What…?” Kylie looked closer at him.

            “It’s been twenty-two years,” he said.

            “That’s not possible!” Kylie shrank back. She looked at Victor, then at Jackie. Something about Jackie made her change her expression. “She is your daughter,” she said breathlessly. “She has your eyes.”

            “I’ll have yours too, in a second,” Jackie warned her.

            “I need you to stay calm,” Victor told everyone. “I realize this must be upsetting for you all, but something strange has happened. You’re telling me that only weeks have passed since I left Last Point, whereas by my perspective it’s been decades.”

            “You have wrinkles,” Kylie was horrified.

            “I swear to you, I’m telling you the truth, Kylie. I really did think we were stranded here. Soon after we arrived on New Gaia, our ship lost contact with Lost Point, and we couldn’t trace the frequency back home. We waited for years for rescue, but there was no communication. At last, we gave up and made new lives for ourselves I married and had a daughter,” he reached out to touch Jackie on the shoulder. “It’s a good life, Kylie. I’m sorry that you had to find out this way, but this is much better than what I feared had happened. We worried that some sort of cataclysmic event had destroyed our own universe. I’d given you up for dead, as assuredly you must have thought the same of me. I still thought of you from time to time, but I knew I’d never see you again.”

            “But it’s only been days!” Kylie protested. “How could all of this have happened so fast?”

            “Some dimensions aren’t temporaly in synch with each other,” Victor suggested. “Years can pass in one dimension while seconds tick by in the other. Still, that shouldn’t have been the case with our two dimensions. We were able to trace our mutual chronology back to the Big Bang.”

            “It’s not just this dimension,” Deborah stepped forward. She looked at Gavin and Jackie oddly. “After the attack, we lost contact with every other dimension.”

            “You say there was a biological attack of some sort?” Victor asked Kylie.

            “It’s like I told you. Someone unleashed a nano-virus and it killed thousands of our people,” Kylie was rubbing the heel of her palm into her eye.

            “Just our people?” Victor pressed.

            “Yes, only Generates in the Corporation,” Deborah tried to follow his reasoning.

            “Then immediately after, you couldn’t communicate across dimensions?” Victor looked off in the distance. “It’s a trap,” he said at last.

            “What do you mean?” Kylie asked him.

            “It’s not our dimension that’s suddenly sped up. Time has slowed in your dimension and your dimension only,” Victor explained. “That’s why you can’t communicate outside of your own dimension, but you were sill able to physically breach into ours. Since time is moving slower for you, any communication signal will become uninterpretable, like a song playing too fast to make out the lyrics. Couple that with the fact that someone specifically targeted the Corporation for death. They were out to stop those best suited to find the problem and fix it.”

            “How is what you’re suggesting even possible?” Deborah asked him, fascinated.

            “Every universe has it’s own frequency. It’s a harmony at which every molecule and strand of energy vibrates. It’s only by manipulating those frequencies that we’re able to cross the dimensional barriers. Someone who has mastered the technology must have devised a way to manipulate they entire universe’s frequency to slow it down to a hum,” Victor said.

            “That still shouldn’t be possible,” Deborah shook her head.

            “It’s only a theory, of course, but we have ways of testing it out. If I’m correct, our entire dimension is doomed,” Victor said sadly.

            “Why?” Gavin broke in.

            “Someone’s bottled up our dimension. With time slowed to a crawl, any outside force can pick away at it at their leisure. It’d be a war in which the enemy had infinite time to plan their strategies. Years would pass between shots in the heat of battle. They could strip our universe to the bone before we could even raise an attack,” Victor surmised. “We need to consult with the President on this.”

            “Not him,” Jackie moaned.