Demicore

Chapter 6

Elizabeth woke to the smell of waffles being cooked in the next room. She stirred to find Erik was already awake and just hadn't moved. It caught her attention that while there was definitely the smell of food being cooked in the kitchen and she could see Katlin and Sonya bustling around in there, there was no sound coming from the movement.

"Good morning, you're waking up right on time," Sonya said smiling and buttering Elizabeth's waffle and pouring her Kayro syrup on it. "Here you go. We have a big day and thought it would be a good idea to get a good start."

"Mmmm, thank you," Elizabeth said as she took the first bite. "It tastes just like my moms."

"Been working on perfecting it for a while. It's a good thing that Dad pays attention when you talk or I'd have not had a clue what you did," then she turned to Erik, "I've double checked all of the machinery. The leak we had the other day is fine now and everything has been tuned perfectly. The house is ready and I scheduled time at the target range for tomorrow, a handgun has been made ready for Mom if she wants to join us and the dojo knows to expect us. Katlin you said you were ready to take your class back over as of Thursday, right?"

"Sonya, I took care of it. I told them when I would be back - it does happen to be Thursday - I would have asked you if I needed you to deal with it. You should have asked Mom and Dad if they were interested in going to the range before you made arrangements," Katlin retorted.

Elizabeth snickered. Somehow it was just amusing to hear them bicker like that. Something in their demeanor said they were not actually upset with one another, so it was all ok in the end. It still all seemed like a dream - some horrible nightmare that she would wake up from to find that she was in the hospital. But she wasn't waking. It was going on and on and she wasn't waking. If these two women were in fact her daughters she had a lot of catching up to do.

When they finished breakfast and cleaned up the dishes, they did a once over of the house to make sure they had not forgotten anything before heading out the front to the hovercraft sitting inside of a small shed off to the side. The craft was large enough to carry four people and looked like something out of Star Wars to Elizabeth. Erik pushed a series of buttons and the engine started to hum. It rose off the ground high enough they needed a step to climb inside. Erik, who normally would have driven, handed the steering mechanism to Sonya and sat in the rear of the craft next to Elizabeth.

"Here we go," Sonya commented as they pulled out of the shed and started over the water, beginning their short journey.

She set a speed of fifteen miles per hour so they could watch the scenery and not hit the many trees they had to go around. Elizabeth smiled at the wildlife they passed. Turtles, fish, birds and even a few snakes seemed to just understand that there was something coming through and got out of the way.

"Why do they move?" Elizabeth asked, "They do not look frightened, just annoyed."

"There is a small device that runs the parameter of the craft emitting sounds that most animals - reptile or mammal alike - can hear and generally move away from. It reduces the number of road kill type accidents and makes for a smoother ride," Katlin replied.

"So why are there not more mosquitoes around?" she asked, "After all, this is a swamp."

"Yes, it is a swamp," Sonya said with some measure of pride, "and we have developed a force field type shell around the craft to protect its occupants as well as a sonic emission that drives them away. It's hooked in to the craft's main deflector and works much the same way with insects as it does for animals."

The craft reached the end of the water and the only difference Elizabeth noticed was the surrounding scenery. The buildings, she noted, had not changed all that much in structure from when she remembered unless it was to revert more to the turn of the century prior to her memory. Even the houses were more beautiful. Architects seemed to truly take pride again in what they were designing. They approached a house that had changed very little other than to be surrounded by grass instead of an entire subdivision of houses. With the craft parked in a small shed much like the one it had left a few minutes earlier, they got out and made their way towards the small building.

The blue porch and white siding were just like she remembered them. If it were not for the entire subdivision having turned to lawn - from Telegraph Road all the way to Pelam and from Van Born half way to Ford- she would not have believed anything had changed at all.

"How is it that Mimi's house is unchanged and all the rest of it gone?" Elizabeth asked in astonishment.

"Time and money change a lot of things," Erik replied dryly. He would gladly have exchanged all the time, knowledge, and money he had gained in order to be able to erase what had happened and return to his life with her uninterrupted. "But it is not unchanged. We just didn't change the outside appearance."

They walked in to find the first floor was relatively the same, the flooring had changed. The small kitchen, two bedrooms and living room were the same size and shape as before. It was when she stepped into the basement that the difference was obvious.

The windows had been changed to one way, bullet proof glass to hide the massive compound the basement had become. They had an entire wing dedicated to the study of martial arts. In it hung some of the most beautiful Asian and Indian weapons imaginable. The next large hallwayoom she looked into was dedicated to electronics and computers - a lab of sorts. There was a bathroom, a kitchenette, and a master suite like she had only ever dreamed of. Erik took the small bag Elizabeth had brought with her into the master suite and proceeded to add the few things in it to the closet and dressers engraved with her name. She sat down on the bed to look around in astonishment.

"You have never been one for such extravagance. What is all this?"

"You were," Erik replied softly, "it reminded me of you. I knew that someday you would come back and what better way to spend the fortune I have built than on the woman I love?" She smiled and tried to take it all in.

They didn't notice the door being closed, they did not see Katlin or Sonya leave. They spent hours reaffirming their love for one another. Gently. Slowly. Passionately. Then they slept. Or rather, she slept and he lay very, very still practicing every ounce of control he had learned in his extensive martial arts training and watched her breathe.

All the training in the world could not have prepared him for her waking in tears, though, which was what she did. And when he tried to comfort her and wipe them away, she looked into his eyes and asked a question he was totally unprepared for even though he knew it was coming for quite some time. "Who was she?"

"Andy?" he asked in utter shock. When Elizabeth nodded he surprised even himself with his answer, "Someone I loved between losing you and getting you back again."

"How did you meet her? How long was I gone before that happened?" then her demeanor changed when she asked, "Where is she now?"

"You were gone for twenty-five years before I met Andy," he told her, still not ready for this conversation and hoping she would take it well. "She was working as a secretary at St. Alfred's... they had to completely change the set up to work with her disability - she was paralyzed from the neck down and was able to function only with a computer that reacted to her eye movements.

By that time I had a couple of doctorates, medical and other. I was developing new advances in biotechnology and cybernetics. At that time I was specifically working on how the brain communicates through the spinal cord to the rest of the body. Conveniently, it was exactly what her problem was."

"You were her doctor?" he could hear the disapproval in her voice. Doctor/patient relationships were unethical.