Curious Sols (The Sol Principle Book 1) Read online

  Jessica looked around, the entire classroom had disappeared. Lights that should be on in her room were off. The only source of light was Wispy hovering in the room, glowing a deep red.

  “Woohoo!” Jessica cheered, “we have a snow day in the making, and I can feel it. Now I just have to get the lights on.”

  Jessica was always fond of her father’s stories from his childhood. He once told her about something called a snow day. This was a day the sky dropped so much frozen water that no one could get anywhere and he wouldn’t have to go to school. She never had a snow day, not where she lived at least. That didn’t stop her from wanting a snow day though, ever since she heard about it.

  Moving to the glass panel by her bedroom door, Jessica waved her hand across it several times.

  “Lights, lights,” she repeated. “Wispy, I can’t get the lights to work. What’s going on?”

  Wispy floated over to her and gave her a nudge as if to comfort her. Jessica gave the floating companion a hug. She then moved to the door exit. Before Jessica stepped through the doorway, however, she stopped realizing the door wasn’t moving.

  “Whoa,” she squeaked, “wouldn’t want to walk into that.”

  Turning back, she hopped onto her bed. Wispy settled in beside her on a pillow.

  “Wispy, what’s going on? I’m scared,” she asked in a soft voice.

  The lights from Wispy flickered in various colors. Jessica watched her friend and replied as if she understood what it said.

  “Ok, I know, I’m sure mom is working on it. She and Captain Sterling, will figure this out. Do you want to play a game while we wait?”

  Again the lights of her companion flickered in various hues.

  “What kind of game?” Jessica replied. “Well, I’m sure we can figure something out.”

  Just as Jessica was about to ponder what kind of game they could play, she noticed another light in her room. This wasn’t from Wispy and she was a bit confused and frightened upon noticing it.

  The light seemed to be an image almost, fuzzy, and hard to figure out. Slowly, the image seemed to focus, much like her holo castle when its projector would go out of whack and her mother would nudge it with her elbow.

  “Hi Jess,” comforted a voice, sounding awfully like her father.

  Jessica jumped away on her bed, nearly squishing Wispy in the process.

  “Father, um… how did you get here?” she shrieked, struggling to keep her voice from dropping.

  “It’s okay, Jess,” he returned. “I’m not really here right now. I am sort of, well, think of how you see me at school. I’m still in my office and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “But we’re not in school,” she replied, reaching up to her forehead she realized that her NEUBI was still on her head. “Oh, I see, you are using the school computer. What’s going on dad? Why is the power out?”

  “Yes, well, sort-of,” John paused before continuing, “I think there was a slight problem with something your mother was working on. She was telling me about it during our quiz. Anyway, your mom was working on it and I’m sure she will have it fixed soon.”

  Jessica seemed to relax a bit. “Oh, yeah, I remember you put the game on pause,” she recalled. “I almost forgot you were talking to Mom, but I was thinking of the last question.”

  Scooting back across her bed, Jessica reached out to give her father a hug. For a moment, she could almost feel the hug he gave her. That was a bit strange, but she didn’t think much of it.

  “Jess, I want you to hang tight,” her father directed her. “I need to get in touch with your Mom and get an update. I’ll get back in touch with you soon. Be tough for me, alright? I’m sure Wispy has plenty of fun things you can play until we get this worked out.”

  The image of her father faded, and the only light in the room was once again her faithful friend. Jessica felt a strange sense of loneliness starting to return to her, but before it could take hold Wispy had fluttered in front of her bouncing up and down.

  Putting those thoughts away she smiled. “So, you ornery ball of light, where were we?”

  #

  Sitting up, Jonathon wiped away what seemed to be streams of perspiration from his forehead. He felt a bit groggy, like he had held his breath underwater for a few seconds too long. Blinking his eyes, he focused on his surroundings. The room was still lit only by the Ksync. He picked it up and looked at the time stamp. Just a few minutes had passed, it seemed as though it was much longer.

  “Well, it looks like I need to find a way to reach Ashley,” he thought to himself. “Do you have it in ya to go another nine rounds?”

  In limited testing, he had been able to use the neuroband without a computer aid in close proximity. Ashley was better at this than him, but she hadn't reached out more than a room or two herself. The whole process was discovered by accident while testing the new prototype. The computer had run into a small loop that Ashley was able to remedy. At the same time, he continued sending his thoughts without knowing the computer was down. When she told him that his thoughts were coming in from the next room regardless, the two of them had spent the next few hours mulling over the, almost scary, ramifications.

  Ashley had been testing the neurobands for years now. Like many government projects, this was earmarked for possible military use and received more than full funding. If it hadn't been for the MARC program and her reassignment, there was no telling where the project would be now. They wouldn't have grown close that much was for certain. They wouldn’t have married, and he would still be searching for Liz.

  Jonathon pushed his trip down memory lane to the side and refocused himself on the business at hand.

  He had to open a drawer manually on his desk. From it, he pulled a clear tube of liquid at least a quart in size. With several large gulps he drank the cool water, setting the remainder on his desk.

  “Let's get this on,” he said out loud. “Ashley I hope this impresses you a bit because I'm going to have a serious headache afterward.”

  “ So... she was wearing her hair up today in one of those wrap hairstyle deals,” John thought to himself as he tried to conjure up a recent picture of his wife. Leaning back he started to go through his relaxation routines – when the lights came on.

  “Oh thank god,” he let out a sigh of relief. “Yes!” he pumped his fist in the air.

  Turning to his comm panel he brought up two screens, one for the science lab and the other for Jessica's room.

  “Hey you two!” John announced. “Looks like someone put the hamsters back in the treadmills to get us some power.”

  Jessica waved and smiled at her father while Ashley swiped the panel on her workstation and gave him the one second sign with her index finger.

  “So what kind trouble were you two going to get into?” John directed his attention to his daughter. Grabbing onto Wispy, Jessica swiped off the light switch to her room. She then took the ball of light and flung it with all her might up and into a corner of the room. Wispy bounced off the ceiling and ricocheted, her color changing and flashing with each bounce off of a wall.

  “So I guess I'll call that, fling a firefly,” he decided.

  Jessica turned the lights back on while nodding in approval.

  Having finished what she was doing, Ashley faced the vidcomm screen.

  “Luckily, those redundant systems finally paid for themselves,” Ashley started. “It took a few minutes for the back-up to reboot, but it had a clean boot unlike the primaries.”

  “Yeah, gotta love technology,” John responded sarcastically. “That's why I leave all those gizmos to you Hun.”

  “Daddy,” Jessica chimed in, “how did your ghost visit me? That was great, can you do that again?” She jumped up and down as she asked, still holding Wispy in her hands.

  “Well... uh Jess, maybe not so soon,” he fumbled with his words. “I have to talk to mommy a bit about Mr. Ghost before he can visit again.”

  Ashley had a puzzled look on her fac
e as she inquired, “Mr. Ghost, who's Mr. Ghost?”

  Jonathon shrugged his shoulders a bit and cocked his head slightly. “Well, we need to have another one of those 'wow isn't this special the computer power was off,' talks I think. If you liked the last one, this is going be a blockbuster sequel.”

  Her face shifting from puzzlement to understanding, Ashley replied with a single word, “Oh.”

  Chapter 7 Family Night

  He wasn't sure what he was going to say to Stephanie. She was reminding him more and more each day of her mother; the good and the bad. If she even came close to going down the same path as Liz, he wasn't going to be able to take it.

  The only thing he was sure of was that he wasn't going to get into it with her right now. The stargazing event for tonight was a few minutes away. John knew if one word was said about the coasters, the last place they would end up would be gazing at stars out the port windows.

  “Five minutes until we head out,” Jonathon reminded his family.

  Opening up a beaten and battered metal case that was sitting on the family room table, he waved off the dust that floated out. Inside the case in fuzzy velvet slots were several odd rectangular devices. Each one had two long cylinders with a reflective piece on the ends held together by a connector of sorts.

  “Just like me pappy left me,” he said in a peculiar voice.

  “Where in the world did he get these?” commented Ashley.

  “What in the world are these?” added Stephanie with a hint of sarcasm.

  “You are looking at five pairs of genuine naval issued binoculars,” relayed John, as he continued in the same peculiar tone. “These will provide us an authentic look at the stars tonight. You'll see things the way our ancestors did a hundred years ago. They were passed down to me by my grandfather, who inherited them from his grandfather.”

  Handing them out one at a time, each family member received a pair. Jessica put them up to her eyes immediately, then flipped them and looked out the other end. Stephanie found something to wipe her pair off with and Ashley was the only one to take him seriously.

  “Do we really have to use these?” Stephanie mused. “We are going beyond our typical nerdy family appearance if that's possible.”

  "You have to humor your father," Ashley interjected in a vain attempt to avoid a family argument. Out of instinct, Stephanie jumped on the opportunity to rebuke her stepmother.

  "You can be the butt of jokes at the star watching if you want," she jided in return.

  One quick glance from her father, with a look atypical of his normal demeanor, made Stephanie reconsider her current tone.

  “Fine,” she conceded, “but if Kim shows up, I'm looking through her Pocket Hubble.” Stephanie grabbed the binoculars. She nervously twirled the device in her hands trying to break the gaze of her father. She didn't know why Ashley always set her on fire. Her stepmother was always nice to her - heck she just saved her from a freak accident. It all came down to her voice. Every time she said something nice, did something nice, tried to help her, Ashley was only a reminder. She was a reminder of the person who was missing in her life.

  The family packed up their binoculars and headed out to the main hall. The corridors of the U.S.S. Columbus were of decent size. During busy times of the day though, it could feel like a one lane hallway leading into a high school cafeteria at lunch. The port observation room wasn't too far of a walk, just down the corridor and a few levels up the lift.

  Entering the dimly lit room, they saw several families already gathered. Younger kids already formed play groups and the older kids started to find their niche areas to gather. Stephanie started to head off toward a group of teens she knew, but stopped after a step and stayed with the family. Jessica, on the other hand, went right over to a friend of hers and started looking at her through the binoculars.

  “You have two great big beady eyes Mary!” she exclaimed. “Have you been bitten by a giant space bug?”

  The two started to giggle and Jessica let Mary look through the binoculars at her.

  Meanwhile, Ashley had found her way over to Glennay who was exploring several flavors of dips at the hors d'oeuvres table. Jonathon wasn't sure if she had conveniently left him alone with his daughter or if it was just chance.

  “Scratch that. Women don't leave conversation to chance,” he joked in his head. “So this must be her way of clearing the road to talk with Stephanie.”

  John gave his daughter a quick hug with his right arm, which he was sure she would hate, but too bad.

  “Stephanie,” he motioned toward an empty part of the observation area, “head over there and let’s test out those fine binoculars.”

  Half-smiling, in a great, let’s-not-do-that-sort-of-way, Stephanie walked over to the window with her father.

  Jonathon looked out to the stars for a moment as if he was hoping to find a helpful answer to a question. Putting on a transparent smile, he slowly turned back to his daughter and asked. “Do you remember the last time we saw your mother?”

  Stephanie's eyebrows went cockeyed and her face winched a bit in surprise.

  “I mean, do you remember that feeling, the last time we saw her?” e narrowed the question.

  A slight tear began to form in Stephanie's left eye as she managed a reply, “Yes,” while turning her head slightly away from her father.

  “So do I,” he added simply. “I don't have to explain more than this. When you go off your ments and I try talking with you, I get that feeling. Confused, uncertain, wishing I could make it all better. Steph, do you understand what I mean?”

  Many more tears rolled down her face now, but instead of turning away from her father, she turned in to him and covered her face with his shoulder.

  “I can't help it sometimes,” she tried to say over her tears. “I just don't feel like a person when I'm on them.” Stephanie tried to wipe away some of the tears and bring herself in. “It's like the best part of me is cut off from everything, everyone. When I’m in class or studying, it doesn’t matter. But when I’m with my friends I want to be funny, quick with the jokes, like you. When I’m off them, I'm alive and free, nothing is too hard, and everything is easy for me.”

  John brushed her hair slightly while trying to comfort her.

  “I know, Steph I know,” he whispered. “I worry that you burn like a candle at both ends without them. Today was just a game Steph, but it could have gone so wrong. That band you had was missing a governor. It wasn’t meant for the coasters. If Ashley hadn't jumped in, you could be in the medical bay, instead of here looking at stars. I don’t have the answer, I just know every time you stop your ments, you are putting yourself at risk. Someday it could be others Steph...” he trailed off.

  The two of them stood quietly until both had reached a silent resolution.

  “ I guess the moral of this story is, next time you borrow some of your stepmother's jewelry, try not to pick out the old broken experimental version if you can,” John joked with her.

  Stephanie cocked her head a bit and returned his smile as she gave him a loving punch in the ribs.

  “I better go to the restroom,” she said.

  “Sure,” he replied.

  Jonathon looked up a bit and caught the gaze of his wife looking in his direction. She gave him an inquisitive look while raising a second beverage glass in his general direction. He walked over and accepted the drink, taking a hefty sip.

  “So, a good cry, or...” Ashley asked.

  “Well, maybe, I can't tell anymore,” John answered indecisively. “It's like you have to get ahead of it, Ashley. If I can help keep her even, everything goes just great. The second that she starts building up those feelings though, if I'm busy, or just don't pick up on it, she can go from zero to a thousand before you know it. Then it's too late, and she's almost impossible to talk back down until it runs its course.”

  “I've been way too busy too, John,” Ashley tried to console him. “The build up to launch and now the trip hasn't l
eft us much family time. It's going to be hard getting settled in to Mars as well. Maybe we need to find a way to make it happen. We used to mandate Friday night as our 'game night. Maybe we can figure out something like that again.”

  John nodded his head agreeing with her, “Yeah, hmmm, maybe.”

  Their attention was diverted from the conversation as excited voices from the far observation windows grew more intense. Walking over to get a look, a small crowd of people from the room gathered to watch. Several flashing lights were coming in their direction. Too bright for anything natural, these must be spacecraft. In fact, a half-dozen ore carriers were making their way back to Earth from Mars.

  Each carrier was gargantuan in size compared to the U.S.S. Columbus. Having been manufactured in space, they were far easier to build in such a size. Also unlike the Columbus, these ships were powered by old fashioned rocket fuel. Their journey would take nearly six times as long as a result. Their successful supply of desperately needed resources had spurred the last bit of funding required for the colonial phase of the MARC program.

  The crew waived as the carriers passed by on their silent journey through space. A solemn lull at the observation windows was filled by a strange yelp from the room.

  “Okay partners,” John called in another odd voice, poorly reminiscent of the old west. “Gather round here and take a look-see through my biiiinoculars! You ain't seen stars until you've seen them the way my great-grandpappy seen them!”

  Jessica sighed to herself thinking, “Is there no escape from this kind of embarrassment? Somebody save me.”

  *

  Chapter 8 Mysteries

  Wispy lifted off the charger and floated through Jessica’s bedroom. Passing directly through the family room and to the exit corridor, Wispy hovered along without its typical waggle. Pausing momentarily for the door to open, Wispy headed out into the main corridor.

  By now the crew was used to seeing a floating ball of light roaming the halls. The first week though, it had sent many people jumping out of their shoes and summoning security. These days, the adults tended to ignore the floating ball of light, and the kids would often chase after it down the halls hoping it would change colors. Most everyone knew Jessica's Wispy.