Dimensions

Chapter 25: A Mission for a Missing Girl

Written by FuturePresentPast

The dagger clatters to the ground, no longer with a body to bury itself in. There is not a drop of blood on it, just a pure, black, shard of obsidian, tied to a handle of ancient varnished mahogany. It looks like it could be worth millions.

All that is left of Carina is a kind of shadow, burned into the floor. A thin trail of smoke rises from it, and it's hot to the touch.

I look at Dylan. He looks at me. I smile.

We don't move for a moment, just sit completely still staring at each other. I see him thinking of Horace. I can just tell by watching his eyes move downwards, avoiding my own half-asleep gaze.

"Excuse me, Miss?"

A shy voice breaks the silence, and I turn around to see a girl's face at the door. She steps in slightly, revealing a dainty blue dress, and long blonde plaits placed neatly down her back. Her face is pale and rounded, and somehow slightly too symmetrical, but blue eyes brighter than I have ever seen and ruby red lips shine out at me. She looks a few years younger than me.

"Umm... And you are?"

"Helena. Helena... Olivers," She pondered, as if her name was a new thing to her.

"Helena... That's a pretty name. What did you want?"

"I am looking for Clara Fitzgerald and Dylan Jacobs," she said.

"Well you came to the right place," Dylan finally spoke, breaking the awkward silence, "What do you need from us?"

"I need to break into the palace's computer records."

"What?" Dylan and I both say at the same time, "The computer records? Why would you want to do that?"

"Forgive me, Miss. I didn't mean to intrude. Only I believe it is necessary to the survival of the human race," As she spoke, i notices a strange tone to her voice. Like very note vibrated in her throat. Almost... robotic.

I don't know what to say to her. She has just walked straight into the palace asking for the computer records, and she looks about fifteen. How do I know if I can trust her? But I need to get into the computers anyway, and what harm can she do?

"No... It's fine, Helena. We were just going to the computers. You can come too, if you want..."

"Thank you very much, Miss," she says animatedly, grinning to reveal perfect white teeth.

"You're very welcome. And call me Clara, please," I smile gently.

"Thank you, M-Clara."

---------------

The Palace computer room is in the underground floor of the building, past two high security password-locked doors and, normally, crawling with guards.

Now, of course, it is completely empty.

At each door, I type in the password my father used for all his important things, carefully shielding the keypad with my hands to avoid Helena's piercing eyes. When we enter the room, I sit down in he nearest computer to me, and quickly type in my father's password, and sit tapping my fingers until the outdated system kicks in.

Dad's profile opens with a picture of Mum pushing me on the swing in the garden. I barely remember the day, but I know the plastic of the swing has long since disintegrated.

In the picture though, we are surrounded by trees and grass and flowers. Dad has photoshopped a whole forest around us, turned the plastic swing seat into what look like real wood, and sitting next to me is a slightly smaller girl, with brown braided hair, blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. The shape of her face is almost identical to mine, except her eyes are brighter and lips pinker. I recognise her as my dead sister, somehow identical in dad's brain as it had been in mine

He had taken a different picture of me, from when I was two or three years younger, and changed the colourings slightly to make what would have been Jenny Fitzgerald aged five has she made it past her first day.

The picture has all been done very cleverly, and I can imagine the happiness it brought him to hide himself in what would have been his perfect family had life taken a different course.

I feel my eyes blur, and quickly blink back tears. Helena hovers behind me, as if waiting for me to do something. "Do you want me to log on for you?"

"No, Miss Clara, I'm fine on my own thank you."

Does she think she can get past the security system? I want to object, but I watch her curiously as she sits down in the office chair next to me and types in a password quicker than I would have thought possible. To my surprise, The computer starts logging on, and soon Helena is staring at the same background as I am.

How did she know Father's password? What is she doing? Who even is she?

Questions swirl dizzyingly around my head, but I push them back and get on with what I need to do.

Opening up some files, I search painstakingly for documents that may be of any use. Slowly but surely, I begin gathering information. Ancient records of times even before the Big Bang. Of the Deviann, and how they would make yearly peace offerings of something called Drikener, some sort of fabric woven from rock. Nothing really makes much sense, and I am about to give up when I notice something. or rather, an absence of something. Sound.

Dylan is in the neighbouring room, searching through the filing cabinets for newspaper articles, so Helena is the only on in the room with me.

Despite this, and even though her screen is speeding wildly through pictures and spread sheets and emails, her body is completely still. Her hand isn't even touching the mouse- she just sits, unblinking and with arms crossed, staring like a zombie at the desk.

I wave my hand in front of her eyes, poke her, slap her in the face, but she doesn't react at all.

"Helena? Helena? You there?"

Her head jerks up.

"Carina. Descendant of Julia the human and Grave the Deviann. Carina is the answer. My work is done."

"Helena? I don't understand? What do you mean?" I ask, "Who are you?"

"I am H-H-Holo-Holorina."

And then she disappears. A face flickers up on the computer screen. Hers.

"I am Holorina. A Hologram, designed by Julia the Human to help the worthy ones return the world to peace. Scanning files," her voice is no longer shy and shaky, but robotic.

"So Carina's half human and half Deviann? That's why she can change between worlds. That's why she's special."

"Carina needs the Drikener wool. Carina must bring it through to this world. Then we will be whole again."

"Drikener wool? Helena I don't understand what I need to do!"

"You must be quick. The worlds are passing close by each other for the first time in hundreds of years. That's why your skin is changing. It must happen, and it must happen tonight."

And then the lights go out.