(Science Fiction)

Prologue:

Josephine sat staring up at the floating and swirling toys, in fixation. She pulled herself up and went over to her baby sister Victoria’s crib and watched her face for a moment. Baby Vicky gurgled and smiled up at her older sister, then went back to watching the toys.

Jo knew that these toys weren’t supposed to be flying, unless you threw them. She ran out of the room, to the living area where her parents were sitting, reading.

”Momma, Da, Vic’s blocks, and dolls, and binkies are flying, and she isn’t throwing them!” She loved her sister very much, but she didn’t want for the blocks to stop suddenly, and fall on her.

Steve, Jo’s father, looked over at Tiffany, his wife. ”What is she talking about?” he asked quietly.

He wasn’t good with kids, even though he loved both of his daughters very much. Tiff had a strong maternal instinct, and he’d do anything for her. He looked back over to his oldest, and had to smile at her perfect imitation of her mother in a temper, hands on hips, tapping her little foot. She would grow into a heart breaker, just like her mom. She was a very impatient little girl. Tiff sighed, and double tapped the space between paragraphs on her screen to hold her place.

”Well, we might as well go look,” she said. Steve gallantly helped her up, and kept a casual hand on her back as they walked through their small home toward the girls’ room.

When the two adults got into the room, they saw exactly what their oldest had. Tiff rushed forward and swept her baby out of the crib, and all of the items fell, while Victoria bawled. She looked at Steve, scared, and wasn’t reassured by the pinched look on his white face. Over the next few days, Tiff made many calls, and consulted many specialists.

By the end of the week they were referred to PEAR, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab, for further testing. Vic was given a scan that showed she had extremely high levels of brain activity in areas that were normally dormant. Many more tests were performed, before they were again contacted with information.

They congratulated Victoria’s parents; they had a telekinetic in the family. They suggested that they either foster their daughter out on the one planets in Epsilon Eridani that had a school for those humans who were thus talented, or that they all move there so that she could receive further training. Steve and Tiff decided to move. Tiff took off earlier, deciding to register their child Vicky at the local school, and get the paperwork and housing taken care of.

She came back for more of their items and picked up Vic, who needed to be tested by the school. Jo decided that she would stay with her father because she wanted to finish pre-school with her friends, and come out at the end of the month with the rest of their things. Steve caved to Tiff’s request, thinking that maybe it would be a good bonding time. Besides, he wouldn't have to change diapers or anything.

...:...:::...:...

Two weeks went by, and Jo and her father were sitting at home, coloring-an activity that Steve had discovered they could do together without him going insane, when there was a knock on the door. Steve got up and answered it, relieved for the break from intense ‘father-daughter time’. He didn’t bother checking the view screen, but hit the switch to let the door swoosh open on its tracks.

Outside stood two patrol men, solar division, if the uniforms were any indication. Warily, Steve invited them in, and gestured for them to sit at the couch. The both very politely refused, and stood standing. He joined Jo at the kitchen table, not bothering to even pretend to be calm. After he was seated in the half packed up kitchen, they told him why they were there.

”Sir, about 4 hours ago there was a mayday broad casted by a ship registered to your residence. When the closest patrol units responded to the call, there was no one there. We have begun searching along the registered flight plan, and we will inform you as soon as we find anything.” He looked down briefly, and then made eye contact with Steve.

Steve sat there and looked at the men for a moment, before what they had said registered. ”WHAT?!” He looked over at Jo, and her wide eyes as she looked up at him. He swallowed, and leaned closer to her.

”Please go play in your room for a while, ok dear?” he asked. She nodded solemnly, and walked through the door. He went over, and pushed the switch to close it. Slowly, he turned back to the men sitting in front of him at his table.

”Did you just say,” he said slowly, calmly, but with a tremor in his voice. The man that had talked earlier glanced over to his companion, then back at Steve. ”That my wife, and my youngest daughter are lost, that they sent out a mayday, and now can’t be found?”

He could feel the tears building up behind his eyes, as the men slowly nodded their heads. Steve numbly went over to the table, sat down across from his daughter’s half finished drawing, laid his head on his arms, and started to cry.

...:...:::...:...
Chapter 1

Jo was bored. She had been sitting in the meeting for the past hour and a half, and still the board of directors were debating on whether or not to let the company they had just bought out, Luna Mineral LTD, keep their name or to change it to the parent companies name; Yamato Inc.

She could not fathom why she needed to be there, and was annoyed that Anderson – her VP – had insisted. Finally, she sighed loudly, leaned back in her chair, and folded her arms across her chest. Almost instantly, she had all 12 board member’s attention. She quickly scanned their faces, giving the impression of having made eye contact with each of them.

“I have heard all of the different arguments, both pro and con, in the past hour. Continuing this is pointless. I have come to a decision.

“They will take on the name Luna Yamato Mineral Inc. LYMI. We will foot all of the costs of refitting them, as well as changing all of their signs, business cards, advertisements, etc. to the new logo. In addition, all existing staff below the level of manager will get a .53 credit raise per rotation, and they will all be put on Yamato Inc’s primary healthcare plan. Any arguments?”

She met the eyes of the most senior member, who looked like he was sucking on a lemon, but quickly dropped his eyes and schooled his face when he saw her looking. There were a few members that seemed like they wanted to say something, but decided not to after seeing the look on her face.

There had been too many times in the past where take over’s had gone badly, and it had made her father’s business look like the big bad wolf of the corporate world. Now that she was in charge, she was going to make sure that the transition of buy-outs went as smooth as possible. They definitely had the resources to make it gentle.

When no one said anything, she nodded, looked to Anderson to make sure he had gotten it all down, and then promptly left the long, open room. She strode over to the bank of elevators that was in the semi-lounge, and leaned in slightly to the eye scanner on the wall, letting it recognize her, before strolling over to the huge windows that displayed the city below while she waited.

Being on the 195th floor, she had a soaring view from the height of 3,220ft, just over a half mile up. She could just see the edge of the city, where it dwindled into agricultural sub divisions. She knew that about one quarter of what she could see belonged to the company, but it was still hard for her to comprehend.

Her father had created an empire in the past twenty five years. Every memory she had of him was tinged either with him late for work, going to work, or tired from work. In theory she could understand the reasons that he had, but now that he was gone, she still regretted not being able to have an actual relationship with him.

She heard the tone of the elevator before it swooshed open behind her, and she quickly stepped in. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. The doors whooshed closed, and she opened her eyes in the gentle light of the spacious box.

“Floor please.” the automated voice requested.

“Home” she replied, knowing that with the pairing of her voice print command and the registration of her irises, it would take her to the top floor to the presidential suite. She wanted to change into something not a pant suit before she started going through the storage space that she had been notified of last night.

Her father had been dead for a month now, and she was still digging through old documents, trying to straighten everything out. It wasn’t until the bill came to her father’s personal address for the overdue storage space payment that she even knew it existed. She wondered what skeletons she would dig up there.

She still wasn’t totally comfortable living in her father’s home, but it made things easier to be on site of where all the major business took place. She had inherited her father’s company with his death, as well as the funds that went with it. He had started things with a shipping company, and things had expanded from there. Now they owned everything from solar mining companies, to sugarcane plantations on Mars and Triton, to Hotels and Resorts in the Caribbean.

The smaller shipping company was what he had given her management of when she turned 16, rather than a car, or flitter, she got a fleet of them, as well as any number of inter-solar space craft. Not the typical sweet sixteen gift. In the last 10 years she had expanded that small sub-division to include numerous large shipment liners, which could go out as far as CoRoT System, though traffic was much more regular between Earth and Epsilon Eridani.

The elevator chimed before opening again, and she walked directly into her father’s living room. The lush rugs covered the real wooden floor-a ridiculous expense that she could never understand. Real wood was so rare now, she didn’t even want to guess how many billions of credits worth there was on this floor. Walking past the rare paintings, and marble statuary, she tried not to think about the waste. She quickly walked to the room that had always been hers. She couldn’t make herself sleep in the room that her father had always used. Not yet.

Jo quickly changed into a pair of stretch pants and a loose top, before going down the short hallway at the back of the suite. She pressed her hand to the scanner on the wall, and got into a different elevator. She told it to take her to the garage, and was glad that it would automatically notify her driver to have him meet her there. She could not feel any movement as the elevator dropped thousands of feet, and within a few minutes she heard the tone before the door silently opened.

She was already so tired of being in elevators. She stepped out into the underground garage, and was unsurprised to see Robert holding the back passenger’s door open for her. She quickly climbed into the car, and relaxed. She hated being in that building.

The field between the back and drivers section went opaque, and Robert looked at her, trying to keep the look of sympathy out of his eyes. He understood her personality, and how hard all of this was for her.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Here,” she said, before pulling out the paper bill, passing it easily through the energy field. “That address, and unit, wherever they are. Wake me about 5 minutes before we get there.” And with that, she lay down on the long seat, finally able to fall into a restless sleep.

She dreamed again, of a girl with long blond hair, dark tanned skin, and a alien sky. For as long as she could remember, she had dreamt of her, even gone to counseling, trying to see if maybe it was an indication of some lesbian suppression. From everything that both her and the dream therapist could tell, it wasn’t, and she honestly had never thought so, but it was odd.

This time, as was the norm, the girl was sitting out in what looked like a jungle, leaning back against a wreckage of a space craft, arms behind her head, looking up at the sky. She was wearing what looked like fish-skin leather’s rather than normal cloths, and Jo could feel something reaching, and didn’t know if it was her or her dream girl. Just as she felt she was about to make a connection, she startled awake.

“Miss Josephine, our ETA is 5 minutes, closer to 4 now.”

Robert’s voice came in over the intercom, as clear as if he were in the same room, or, well, sitting right next to her. She sat up slowly, putting a hand to her head which was suddenly throbbing. She wasn’t surprised, her wild-girl dreams were always followed by a headache.

“I hear you Robert, sorry about that. Haven’t been sleeping well at all-Worse than normal, which (*sigh*) as you know is never good.”

“Understandable miss, just following your orders. Though I am not sure about this address. You are sure there wasn’t a typo?”

Noting the concern in his voice she looked out the window, and immediately regretted the fact that they were in a sleek black towncar. There were boarded up shops all along the street, and broken down buildings. She hadn’t even know there was this level of dilapidation in the city…but maybe they weren’t in the city anymore?

“Robert, we are still in New New York, right?” She tried to keep the uncertainty out of her own voice.

“Yes miss, though on the far outskirts, by the old warehouse district.”

That would explain the broken down buildings. It was next on the city’s construction/demolition list. They turned off the main road, if that is what it could be called, and down a side street that had tall buildings looming on either side. It looked to Jo as if they were literally leaning out over the road, and she hoped that they weren’t THAT unstable.

The car coasted to a stop outside a ‘U-Store’ business, and Robert manually took down the privacy field between driver and passenger. The look on his face was not so much skeptical as incredulous.

“You don’t seriously intend to go in there, do you?” he asked, his tone careful.

“Not without you, I don’t,” She replied grimly. “I may be impulsive, but I’m not dumb.”

He grunted, before turning into the driveway, creeping along the parking lot lane and storage buildings, glancing down at the paper she had handed him earlier. After more speed bumps that Jo wanted to count, he stopped in front of one of the smaller buildings.

“This is it,” he said. “You have a key?”

Jo let out her breath, and opened her door for herself, pushing up on it gently before the hydraulics system kicked in. Robert cursed under his breath, and turned the car off, opening his own door and rushing around to try to help her out. By the time he cleared the corner of the car, she was already walking off toward the front of the building. She looked warily at the old fashioned door, noting that there was a physical lock, but it looked simple enough.

She slipped the slim wallet out of her pocket, and drug a nail along three of the edges, releasing the seal and opeing it to revieal basic lock picking tools. Robert grunted behind her, as he saw what she was doing, and turned his back to the door, keeping an eye out for anyone, or anything, that might approach. Jo knew he didn’t approve of the skills she had honed while a teenager, but what else was she supposed to do? Only god and tax collectors knew where her father had hidden the key to this thing.

Within moments, she had the door open, and was pushing the big door up into it’s recess in the ceiling. The room was dark, and automatically she commanded, “Lights.” Nothing happened. “Illuminate!” “Glow!” “Bright?!” Suddenly the lighting flicked on, and she turned to Robert grinning, only to scowl as he smirked at her, his hand still on the light switch.

“Jerk..” she mumbled, before going further into the room. They seemed to be only in a type of foyer, as there was another door directly ahead. This one, she instantly saw, was a high tech monstrosity, and she hesitated before approaching.

“Identify” the mechanical voice grated out, when she was about two feet away.

“Josephine Yamato,” her quiet voice rang out.

The light next to the door blinked for a few seconds, still red and baleful, before turning green. With a beep, the door whooshed open, and she slowly walked forward, hearing Robert follow.

“Robert, stay out here please.” Before he could protest, she walked into the room. This time, when she said ‘Lights’ the room lit up, about a half dozen boxes along one wall, and a sprawling metal desk, and what seemed like hundreds of papers on the other, and a huge, expensive 3-D laser graphic display of the explored galaxy along the back of the room. There was a small blue route. from Earth to Epsilon Eridani outlined on it, with a yellow line directly next to it, and a red box at the end of it, about the half way mark. Slowly, she walked toward the map, wondering why this route would be highlighted, but only show a half course completion. She tapped the air where the red square sat, and stood in shocked silence as she heard a woman’s voice.

The woman’s voice was panicked, and she could hear a baby crying in the background. It sounded like it was coming over a battered ships speaker system, and at first she couldn’t make out what the woman was saying through the ambient noise and static. Finally, after a few seconds, it registered.

“Mayday, ***yday! This i*** the Yam*****o Flower! There***someth******ling us off course, I no long******control of ***ship, Please***yone, if y***can hear this***ase, th**e seems ******a, a, weir******, ***gravitational pull***too mu******e engi*es! The ***ines *** out, I ***peate, t*e Eng*** are ou******yday! MA***AY! W******FF COURSE, *HE EN****** ARE ******ER’S A FU**IN******HOLE! MAY*** M**DAY! MA*********”

Jo stood, her entire body cold, in shock. She could feel her hand shaking, as she brought it up to her mouth, and wasn’t surprised when she discovered the tears on her face. There were only a few recordings she had seen, growing up, but she couldn’t deny that she had just heard the last recording of her mother’s voice.