Helix
Harmony suffers regeneration on a world that should not exist and meets a man who defies impossibility to declare himself her match.
Harmony enjoyed her life as a courier for the Alliance, but it all came to a halt when she was sucked into a storm of light and gas that her computer could not see. Agony is her final thought, but when she wakes again, she finds that her body has been recreated because the original…the less said the better.
Nero has been working as a restorer for three hundred years on a world where the only new members of the population fall from the sky. He sees spirit in Harmony, and when she declares that she only wants him for his body, he is smitten.
They face the stars that brought them together and work in their different ways to bring their community into harmony with a world as trapped as they are.
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Helix
Copyright © 2013 Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-77111-695-4
Cover art by Martine Jardin
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Devine Destinies
An imprint of eXtasy Books
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Helix
A Terran Times Tale
By
Viola Grace
Chapter One
Harmony Winx eyed the storm approaching and checked the navigation systems. She could see it, but on her systems, there was nothing in front of her.
“Computer, identify incoming anomaly.”
The pleasant computer voice said, “Courier Winx, nothing is visible.”
“There has to be. There is an incoming storm that I can’t get around, I need an alternate course.”
“There is nothing visible on my systems, Courier. I suggest that you make an appointment to see a physician when you arrive at the next station.”
“I probably will, Computer.”
It was no use. With no way to get around it, no way to get under it, the gas cloud whirled and swirled as she approached. Lightning sparked and arced as her courier ship cruised forward. Pink and lavender vapour spirals twisted out and around in a wave thousands of kilometers across.
Harmony held back until it was obvious that there was no possible way of making it through the system and out the other side without touching that cloud.
“What the hell.” She took a deep breath and hit the throttle, flying directly into the cloud that wasn’t there.
She flew in with amazement and wonder racing along every nerve as she was surrounded by the figment of her imagination.
The first lightning strike killed her nav computer and the second turned off all the lights. She assumed there was a third, but all she remembered was fire.
* * * *
“We found her floating dead, sir.” The Catcher was apologetic.
Nero didn’t need his apologies; he just needed to get into the ship to find the biological matter that was showing up on his scanners. “When can I get inside?”
“The final decontamination protocols are nearly complete, Doctor. The Retrievers will have her soon.”
Nero fought the urge to pace. It would not help his patient. The body was already cold. He had to wait out the protocols just like anyone else.
Ninety minutes later, he was at the side of the ship and watching the extraction crew as they removed the body. “The chamber is waiting.”
They nodded and carried the figure of the woman to the restoration chamber. He only needed a little DNA, so he hoped that the blast that killed her had not ruptured the information he needed.
Once she was positioned on the exam bed, he took a long look at her. Her limbs were long and graceful, her features pure and her hair was long and dark. He had the ability to see what she should be through the burn and ash, what she was and what she was going to be once he brought her back in a new body with the memories he could scrounge from the old.
Nero hoisted the scanner and set it on the tracks, looking for viable tissue and the precious DNA that would carry the information he needed.
When the screen lit up, he sighed with relief. He quickly checked the tanks for bodies in process and exhaled when he found one empty.
The storm brought them all manner of people. Some would thrive, some would reject their new bodies and leave the worlds of their own accord the second time around. He had hope for each and every one of them. It was his job, his duty and his calling.
The tissue that he found came from her heart, which was highly unusual. In a normal case, the heart was the first thing to go. Either she had been affected in a peculiar fashion, or she had a very strong heart. Either way, he could hardly wait to meet her.
* * * *
Her first memories were of thrashing around and pounding on a clear wall in a panic. Breathing in fluid was wrong. She knew it was wrong, and she wanted out.
A platform rose up under her and spilled her out onto a flat surface. She coughed the liquid out and sucked in sweet air that burned as it provided her with precisely what she wanted.
“Slow down, miss. You have been through a trauma.”
Gentle hands stroked her face. The voice was kind and excited at the same time. The flat surface she was on swung out and lowered her until the man with the kind voice could roll her onto the next table.
He covered her with a soft cloth and smiled at her. “Hold still please while I check to make sure that you are completely recovered.”
“Where am I? What happened?”
He cleared his throat. “I will answer your questions once I am sure that you have been repaired to my satisfaction.”
She kept herself quiet while the scanner ran a beam over her from head to toe. It gave her time to take a good look at the man studying the readout.
He wasn’t brown, he wasn’t blue, but he was something in between. His skin was a few shades lighter than her own, but the blue tinge made up for it. His hair was the truly striking thing about him; it was deep crimson and was braided and studded with small bits of silver and bronze.
His ears were pointed sharply at the tips, decorated with metal, like his hair, and the rest of his features were lean and elegant. He was very pretty, but she didn’t know who he was any more than she knew who she was.
He sighed and smiled. “You are fine. Your body is wonderful. Now, we need to set your mind in place.”
“What?”
“Sit up, please.” He had a halo in his hands with small tabs set around it.
She sat up but cringed back. “Why?”
“You were damaged in a storm. Your memories were blurred, but I have a download of what were able to recover. The halo has them stored and will restore them to you.”
She blinked suspiciously. “How do I know that you won’t put something else I my mind?”
“I am a medical professional. I will not take advantage of you. On my honour, you will come to no harm by my hand.” He placed hi
s hand on the centre of his chest.
She swallowed and nodded, bowing her head forward to accept the halo.
“There will be a tingle, but as these are your memories, you should be able to absorb the information without pain.”
She inhaled on a shaky breath and watched him as he pressed the keys that would show her who she was.
Learning to ride a bike and laughing at the freedom.
High school prom night and her first time getting drunk.
The thrill of acceptance to the Volunteer program back on Earth.
Three sisters and a going away party, strippers painted in four different shades of the rainbow.
A stern commander with horns teaching her to fly a shuttle.
The images of three dozen worlds and chasing the dawn on every one.
Harmony Nina Winx. Courier of the Alliance and Terran Volunteer.
More information flooded her, but there were large gaps in her memories.
“I am Harmony. Alliance Courier. Who are you?”
He grinned. “You managed more than I thought. I am Nero, physician and restorer.”
“Pleased to meet you. Now, what the hell am I wearing?”
“The metal offers you insulation and a protective field.”
She wrinkled her nose and looked down. “Can’t there be more of it?”
He chuckled. “It is designed to give you complete freedom of movement.”
She looked down at the swirls and twists of metal. Her essentials were covered but that was the most that could be said about the concealment it offered. It was more a bikini than a covering.
She flexed her arms and legs, moving against the slight restraint of the suit. “It feels weird.”
“Are you cold?”
“No. I am fairly comfortable.”
“Good. The suit has the function of reporting to our systems if you have any issues. Would you like to try standing up?”
She wasn’t sure. Her body felt weird, like it didn’t know what would happen next. “Give me a few minutes. I don’t feel quite right.”
Aside from the huge gaps in her memory, her callouses were gone. She looked down, and her scars were gone as well. Harmony rubbed her hands together and felt the infant-like smoothness.
Nero left her alone, and he fussed around a computer terminal on one side of what appeared to be a well-equipped medical bay.
Harmony continued to check for the scars that should be there while she looked around her. There was the clear wall of a tank in front of her. She recognized it even though the last time she had seen it clearly, she had been inside it. The metal plates on either side of her clear pane caught her attention. They were the same size as the tank, and it got her thinking that she might not have been a singular captive of the medical staff.
Carefully, standing on feet that were almost as soft as her hands, she wrapped the sheet around her and took a few shaking steps toward the metal plates. With intuition, she touched a small raised pad on the wall and when the metal slid up, she heard the shout from Nero through the roaring in her head.
In the tank floated a man who wasn’t injured but in early stages of development. He wasn’t being healed; he was being cloned.
She closed the panel again and turned to her restorer. “I think you need to explain.”
Nero’s skin was paler than before when he gestured for her to resume her seat. “You are going to need to sit for this.”
Harmony hopped up onto the table. “For what? I am a clone. Where is the original me?”
Nero winced. “She is dead. Nothing survives coming through the storm, but we can regenerate you to the point at which you died. That is where we find ourselves today.”
“Where is my body?”
“Cold storage. We always keep the original until the restored version is mobile and whole.”
“Show me. I need to see me.” Harmony’s mind was still in shock, so what was one more surprise to add to the fire? She had always been one to get things over with.
“That is unwise. Most newly restored folk cannot deal with being face to face with themselves.”
“I am not most. I am me, and I need to see it. Please.” She added the last when she saw him waver. Sure enough, it tipped him over the edge.
“Come with me. Remove your wrap. If you are carrying it, they will know that you are right out of the tank. That will not get you into the storage facility.”
She winced but set the sheet aside and stood proudly in the strange wire and leaves of metal that covered her. “Fine. May we go now?”
“Please, but stay next to me and laugh at whatever I say. They will be off their guard if you appear to be on a date.”
She sighed and nodded. “Whatever you say. Lead the way.”
He offered her his arm, and she took it gratefully. The suit was protecting the soles of her feet, but her legs were still unsteady. She would take all the help he offered.
Now, where the hell was her body?
Chapter Two
Harmony tensed when she saw the first being that wasn’t Nero. The male nodded to them and passed them by without doing more than giving her body a cursory glance.
She had to admit that she was slightly offended. She looked good and she knew it, but wearing as little as she was, she should have elicited more of a response.
Nero glanced at her, and he chuckled at her expression. “You are wearing the bands of one who is newly restored, and I am dressed as your physician. No one will interfere with you unless there is good reason.”
“Wait. This happens a lot?”
He shrugged. “We all came through a storm, a rift, a bolt or a power fluctuation. I don’t know who the first restorer was, but he or she set up the equipment and procedures we use today to seek life in those who fall.”
“Fall?”
“Everyone who comes to us falls. When we leave the facility, I will show you.”
He kept a slow pace for her, and she occasionally felt the caress of his hair or the colder touch of one of the beads attached to a braid skimming across the back of her thighs.
Questions popped up in her mind, but she throttled them back as they ended their walk down a hall and daylight flirted with her vision.
When they stepped into the light, she had trouble breathing. Nowhere on all of the worlds that she had visited had she ever seen something like the vista in front of her.
Ancient buildings, carved, grown and twisted out of stone were dotted around rivers, streams and creeks of a liquid that hummed with light. If that were water, she would eat the metal bodysuit she was wearing.
Nero kept her moving along the stone pathway that was aimed at an arched bridge. They didn’t speak as they walked, and Harmony was beginning to wonder how long she was going to be expected to keep moving. Her legs were already aching.
It was so strange. She was used to using her entire body to control her ship. To have her limbs feeling like they weighed two tons was a new experience. She hadn’t felt this weak since she was back on Earth.
“What do you think of the skyline?”
“The city is interesting. It looks like it was cobbled together by dozens of different races over time.”
He grinned. “That it was, but I meant our sky.”
She looked up to be polite, and her throat locked again. A ragged tear of light split the sky and spilled outward in gradually fading waves. “What the hell is that?”
“That, Harmony, is where you fell from. That is our gateway to our homes, but none of us have been able to return.”
He kept leading her carefully as she stared up at the sky. He had one arm on her back and the other on her forearm.
“I fell out of that?”
He chuckled. “You did. We all did.”
“How many people are here?” She resumed looking around her and ran her hand over her bald skull out of nervous reflex.
“At our peak, it has been twelve thousand. Every few decades someone cobbles a ship together and they se
t off to explore more of this strange pocket in space.”
“Is that what this is?”
“As far as we know. All of our instruments indicate that it is an extension of our own universe, but we can’t get out.” His tone was matter of fact.
“How long have you been here?”
“I have been here five hundred years and have been a restorer for the last three hundred.”
“What?”
“The energy that restores us keeps us from aging. You will never age another day.” He smiled.
She stopped and smacked her bald skull. “You mean I won’t grow my hair again?”
He blinked. “Your body didn’t have hair so it was not set in your helix when you were set for restoration.”
Quickly she checked and she had her brows and lashes. “Oh, thank goodness.”
“Your body had brows and lashes, so they were kept in the pattern.”
“Pattern?”
“Your genetic pattern.”
They were on the bridge, and she looked to either side of the pathway, one direction led into the heart of the strange city and the other would take her past a mausoleum.
Nero turned them toward the mausoleum.
“Remember, keep your head high as if you are simply on a tour.”
She nodded and resumed her light grip on his arm, her skin glowing a dusky bronze in the light of the river.
The mausoleum doors opened and a guard nodded as they passed. He greeted Nero with a curt, “Restorer.”
Nero nodded back and led Harmony into the surprisingly clean medical facility behind the doors.
Clean white stone floors reflected a gold polished ceiling. They walked the hall for a few minutes before Nero turned them down another hall where the word storage was carved in elegant script. Harmony had no idea how she was able to read it but that was yet another question for the pile.
The room was cool and the waist-high metal plates in the wall were indicative of the storage of the dead across the universe. Harmony was suddenly a little afraid of what she would see when Nero opened that plate.