Author:
Loveroy - happy that she doesn't live in the FL Panhandle
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Date Posted: Wednesday, September 15, 12:16:47am
In reply to:
Loveroy
's message, "Mon Roi - Chapter 36 and forward" on Thursday, August 12, 02:40:15am
Michael stood in front of a full-length mirror donning his biohazard suit one single piece at a time; his reflection unmonitored by his escort. The Monarch cautiously inspected the garment he now wore to insure it was the same apparel he brought with him into the area. Michael was aware that his jailers made facsimiles of the cover for their own safe use, and thus was surmissed every part of it was still intact.
Michael recognized the suit as his own and understood that the value of the item would diminish if he was not safeguarded and allowed to reveal the remaining reconstruction secrets he held. So he stopped worrying that his jailers compromised the biohazard suit and started agonizing about Nikita and the mission she was leading on her own. He trusted the woman to succeed in anything she was assigned to do, however, she didn’t possess all the Intel on this mission and thus was at risk. Michael was glad he trained her to adapt to any anomaly that she could be faced with and prayed that she came out of this unscathed.
His mind was reeling as he berated himself for lying to Nikita once more; the woman was a saint for putting up with him and his half-truths. But he rationalized that the beautiful woman’s good heart and even better soul made her a loose cannon during a time when everyone was an enemy and no one could be trusted. He hated telling her that Jerome was not the hitchhiker, because Michael figured the child’s real purpose even long before he realized the boy was not Adam.
Michael let out a long breath as he started his trek towards his new enemy, one he didn’t know well yet. Wherever it was that his guard was taking him Michael was sure it was not to Red Cell; Jerome was the last of the terrorist group. Michael understood that Jones and his people where just the wretched refuse of some teaming shore, desperate outcasts that needed rescuing.
Michael thought enough time had passed without anyone that mattered noticing the absence of the blonde woman or the boy and this made Michael feel a little better. Perhaps Nikita had already reached Walter and the old man was hard at work deciphering Michael’s message. Perhaps the not so innocent child had been placed in Containment and Michael’s reconstructed realm remained safe for now.
----
Prince Michael was ushered to a reception room and was asked to wait outside a pair of metal double doors. Gone was the reverence everyone had shown the Prince previously, although a smidgen of respect remained in dealing with the Monarch. With his awkwardly gloved hands Michael picked up from a desk a document containing a chronology of Nikita’s life and speculated as to why it was compiled. He finished memorizing its content as he was asked to enter through the double doors and wait again.
The room housed an enormous glassed-in box in the middle of the cavernous area. Individuals wearing biohazard suits, replicas of Michael’s own but made a bright red color, worked at keyboards. They were hooked to white trailing tubes and the temperature of the area was subzero. Inside the glass box other red dressed individuals worked around a hospital bed, pumping into metal cylinders the content of syringes. The hypodermics used to remove something from the neck and arm of the victim on the bed.
From the angle Michael stood, he was not able to see who was on the stretcher or what exactly was being done to them. Michael could read the indicator and meters besides the patient’s resting-place and at least could determine that the individual was alive, but in a state of catatonia. A pair of scientists worked intensely on the person on the litter, when finally Mr. Jones and Mr. Chandler stepped into the room where Michael stood.
After exchanging pleasantries the men explained that the child was not really Adam, they were sure Michael already knew this bit of information. They also were convinced that the Monarch discovered that Jerome was the hitchhiker planted by Red Cell to contaminate Michael’s realm. This was the reason, and in a show of good faith, that Jones had the child cancelled when he reached the other side, before he infected the water supplies to Prince Michael’s Kingdom.
Then the men ordered the doors to the glass room opened and Michael saw for the first time that inside a zippered silver warming blanket lay Michael’s beautiful Nikita. Her peaceful face reminiscent of the deep sleep she enjoyed after they made love. Nikita’s beautiful blonde hair shaved off at the places were white round cells were attached. Michael had to drag control from the deepest corners of his famous discipline in order to stop from destroying the lab and its content, the scientists and snoopers, in a moment of rage.
-----
Nikita’s mind had started backwards recounting all she had seen, all she had done during her young life. In a sequence that moved at the speed of light she remembered Roberta, Corine, Terry and Carla and happier times and pleasanter places. She recalled her pony, her first dog and her scrawny cat, her first grade teacher and her first dance. Nikita then entered into her memories of her period with Michael and tried desperately to slow the passing of time, but failed, until her mind was totally blank.
She now slept; a blank slate that knew nothing of her past, her present or the hope of a future. Michael watched in astonishment as she breathed slowly, no expression, no dreams, for the woman before him was out-of-mind. Slowly they had drained her brain, no memory to speak about, no conscious thought to share; Nikita was but a shell of her former self.
Jones spoke, “She is cataloging her memories and we are saving them into the computer. Well, you must recognize the gadget, after all wasn’t it you who developed the science?”
Michael didn’t answer, all he could do was breath and control his emotions, the Command Key burning a hole on his chest and ridiculing his annihilated soul. He could see Nikita’s pouting lips still crimson from the lipstick, the earrings her great-grandmother had given her still resting on her prefect earlobes. He wanted desperately to see the rest of her, to insure that she was intact, that although her soul was gone, Nikita was still there in body.
“What is it that you want?” Michael asked after a moment.
Jones spoke slowly, he coughed a couple of times during his soliloquy, “Help us reconstruct, save our people and we will let you go and take her with you. Her memories are in the repository for you to return to her. You have the ability to save her, the ability to save us all. I am dying; I don’t care what happens to me. But I just want my people to survive, I owe them that much.” Of course Michael stopped listening when the man spoke about giving him back Nikita’s mind, the rest of the long speech went unheard.
“Fine.” Michael answered and moved to contact his Kingdom but was stopped by Chandler.
The distinguished looking gentleman spoke, “Sorry Your Highness, but we cannot allow you to call for reinforcements.”
Michael laughed, “Then how do you propose I save you?”
“You have the Intel Sire, you have the knowledge, use it.” Chandler said and ordered Michael taken to a similarly styled glass room across from Nikita.
The idea was that the Monarch would work on saving the 1,000 under the constant reminder that he held Nikita’s future in his hands. Michael sat at a bank of computers and started typing frantically equations and logarithms that would help him design a sym to save these people. The irony of this whole fiasco was that Michael would have worked to save the 1,000 without a complaint or a hitch. It was too late now and although feeling guilty for putting Nikita in this peril, Michael knew deep inside that he was not responsible for the position they found themselves in right now.
The last memory stolen from la belle femme Nikita was of a jeweled necklace, a set containing a pair of dangly earrings, a handsome Prince and the Appraisal Fair.
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