Chapter Eleven:
Celestia woke up to the sound of the cell door opening. It was the alien with shoulder length silver blonde hair and striking features that she remembered seeing during her interrogation. She moved to get up but the alien came over and sat down on the side of the bed facing her.
“Don’t bother to get up Celestia,” he said. “I want to ask you a few questions.”
Celestia pulled her legs up until she was sitting with her legs crossed facing the alien. She was struck by how beautiful, yet cold his eyes were. She felt like a tiny mouse facing a cat. The alien waited until she finished positioning herself before speaking again.
“The Commander and our computer specialist both feel that you posses skills that would be useful to us. Your assistant Jason is currently being tested to see if he posses any useful skills as well,” he paused and somehow Celestia knew he was watching to see her reaction to what he said about Jason. Celestia felt cold; somehow she knew that if she made an issue of Jason’s safety it would be a mistake with this person. She remained silent. The alien smiled and continued, “What I need you to do is clarify your relationship with your assistant for me. Your notes in your files indicate that he functioned as a full assistant and even assisted in creating some of your programs and information, like the energy signature to disrupt our nervous systems.”
Celestia answered, “That’s correct. I hired him because he did have the skills necessary to actually assist in the calculations. I also hired him as he had extensive programming knowledge and the necessary office skills to properly prepare reports on everything we were working on. I’m not very good at writing reports.”
The alien watched her for a moment and then continued. “How do you feel about your assistant Jason?” He said. Celestia hesitated; she wasn’t sure how to respond. She did find Jason attractive, but they didn’t have a relationship beyond work.
She looked down at her hands and replied, “There is no relationship beyond our working together.” Celestia didn’t even have a chance to react as the alien backhanded her with such force that her head slammed painfully into the wall. Before she could even register what had just happened he had reached over and grabbed her hair behind her head and pulled her towards him until their faces were inches apart.
“Don’t lie to me Celestia,” he said, “Your eyes tell me a different story.” The alien held up a small device for Celestia to see. “Do you know what this is?” He asked her.
Celestia whispered, “no.”
The alien smiled cruelly. “It’s a disruptor, don’t be fooled by its small size. It’s almost as effective as the one the commander used on you the other day.”
Celestia shuddered involuntarily as she remembered all too well how painful the interrogation had been the other day.
The alien smiled and said, “Now tell me how you really feel about Jason unless you think I should be asking him instead.”
The look in his eyes when he mentioned Jason sent a shiver of fear running through her, Celestia didn’t hesitate this time, “I find Jason attractive and I’m pretty sure he is attracted to me as well. Though we haven’t acted on it or actually discussed it with each other.” She said.
He released her and Celestia fought the urge to move away. The alien leaned back and said, “next time you lie to me I won’t be as forgiving.”
He got up and walked over to the cell door. He stopped, turned around and said, “My name is Jared. I’m second in command on this ship and as of now you answer to me.” Before Celestia could respond Jared continued, “Several of my men will be taking you to Nathan who will test you to see what you are capable of.” He paused for a moment and continued, “I suggest you cooperate, though there are other more entertaining methods of obtaining the information we want should you choose to be difficult. I’ll let you decide.” Jared smiled and left.
Once the cell door closed Celestia leaned back against the wall. She fought the urge to cry as intense feelings of despair and hopelessness filled her. No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t see a way out of this predicament that she had gotten Jason and herself into. Celestia had wanted to ask about Jason, but she had been too frightened of Jared to ask. Just what did Jared mean by being tested? She hoped that Jason was okay. Well as okay as anyone could be in a situation like this.
Celestia pulled her legs up and rested her chin on her knees. Ironically if her dreams were accurate she already knew the layout of the ship and just what to do to destroy it. So far every detail from her dream had been accurate regarding the aliens. Or should she be calling them Versilians since in her dreams they referred to themselves as being from the planet Versilan. Celestia had changed the name to Silver One because in the dreams all of them had silver colored eyes. The only thing she had encountered that hadn’t been in her dreams was the mysterious door of light. She had a guess as to how it worked, but she hadn’t seen one in any of her dreams. Did that mean it was a more recent development?
Celestia leaned back, resting her head against the wall. When the dreams had first started twelve years ago they were so vivid and detailed that she finally built a proto type of the holographic program. She had been surprised when it had actually worked. She had been even more surprised when no one had been able to duplicate a program written by a mere fifteen-year-old girl. She became wealthy literally overnight.
Encouraged by that success she had began to work on the next level by making the images solid. It took ten years, as she had to write the specifics for the hardware to support it, as nothing existed that could produce the solid images. Again she was surprised when her idea worked. She had invested quite a bit of money into making the new technology. It never occurred to her that the information on how to actually create such stuff could have come from another world altogether! She had assumed that dreams was simply a way for her mind to tell her how to do things.
Celestia had read that geniuses often heard whispers in their mind telling them the answers to complex problems. So she assumed that for her the method of how her mind worked was dreams. Even to this day she still had vivid dreams about the Versilans and about other technological ideas here on Earth. Though truthfully around seventy percent of the dreams were about the Versilans. Celestia had written down notes about every idea she had for a new technology or device. She could reproduce it from memory if needed, but she had taken to putting her ideas down when they occurred as she had so many of them. She had built a special computer just to hold the files and she kept it securely locked up in a safe built into her bank’s home office location. She had her own personal office there that she used whenever she wanted to work on her computer; even the program to access the safe had been built by her.
Celestia’s train of thoughts was interrupted as two guards entered the cell. One of them was holding a set of restraints. Celestia got up off the bed and turned her back to them. She held her hands behind her back as she was certain they were there to take her somewhere. When she felt one of the guards placing the restraints on her wrists she knew her assumption had been correct. She turned around and waited for the guard to tell her what to do. He turned to leave so she meekly followed him.
As they were taking her through the ship she recognized where they were going. If her dreams were correct they were heading to the main workroom for the ship’s computer specialist. The entered a large room that looked surprisingly like the control room in her building where she had built Silver One. There were obvious differences, but she could clearly see the similarities. An older man with silver gray hair was already there. The guards removed the restraints and took up positions by the door.
“Please come here Celestia and take a seat,” the man said. He had a kind expression on his face and for some reason Celestia felt as if she knew him from somewhere. He looked a lot like one of the Versilans from her dream but that alien had been much younger, or at least looked much younger. She walked forward and sat down at the console as he requested.
“My name is Nathan, and I’m the computer specialist. I want you to take some tests to help me determine what you understand,” he said. Celestia watched as Nathan did something to change the information on the monitor to English. Nathan continued, “Please answer to the best of your ability and be sure to explain what parts of the questions you don’t understand, okay?”
Celestia just nodded her head and turned her attention to the first question. Now that she saw the alien up closer she decided it was highly unlikely he was the same one from her dream. He did look a lot like the one in her dream, but he had been called Daniel, not Nathan. And she found it hard to believe someone who was only twenty in her dream could age so much in just twelve years. After twelve years of dreams she decided it was no surprise that she had run into someone who resembled one of the aliens from her dreams.
