Aberrant: 2011 - Sleep Summer, Sleep...

[Summer Solstice]

June 21st, 11:46am

“How long has she been this way?” Director Cunningham asked. His mood was bitter as he looked around the Utopian medical bay that was converted into a lab about an hour ago.

“We don’t know sir. The housekeeper discovered her around seven A.M. and she immediately called us. It’s getting larger sir. Perhaps we should move her to another location? And what should I tell the press?”

“Nothing. No one needs to know anything until we know something.” Director Cunningham replied, his breath visible as a billowy cloud of cold.

“We can’t reach her parents sir, and what about Pax? This is obviously some sort of quan-“

“Did you hear me Greg? No one means no one! Her parents don’t give two farts in the wind about her. They’re in Maui, on her dime no less, and no doubt have their cell phones off. I’m well aware of what this is, and the last thing I need is Caestus Pax here in New York breathing down my neck! I’ve run this facility for seven years with no incident, I’m not about to let some spoiled, rich, brat tarnish my record.” The Director turned to Greg, who was overseeing the conversion of the lab before the Director had arrived. “Keep an eye on her, but so help me if you and your team do anything without consulting me first you’ll never work again, period.”

A bit shocked by the threat Greg stood wide-eyed. “Y-yes sir.” He managed to stammer out to Director Cunningham’s back as the man walked away from him to tend to other business.

He walked away from the subject of the conversation, barking some orders to a few guys who didn’t seem to understand what ‘sensitive equipment’ meant. A thick layer of frost covered every corner of the room branching out from a single source. Centered in the room along the back wall sat a crystal clear shard of solid ice, its surface showing where the countless observers had wiped away the sheet of frost to see what lay within.

Naked and still, Solstice Astovik floated in the center of the large frigid prison. She wore her baseline form. Her complexion was nothing short of perfect and her black hair flared out from behind her, dancing on its own, leaving the doctors to believe that the ice was hollow and contained water or some other unknown liquid.

As the temperature dropped, the men continued to work.

June, 21st 1:17pm

“Vitals normal…” Doctor Amir mumbled to himself, checking off a box on the hourly checklist. He pulled the collar of his parka closer together. Frost had already begun to form on his eyebrows and mustache and in the past few hours the temperature had dropped so low that special protection seemed required to go anywhere near the sixteen year old nova’s resting place.

Outside the room, behind the observation glass the team of doctors and orderlies worked as fast as they could to solve the mystery behind Solstice’s sudden sleep.

“Man that girl is quite a catch, would you hit that or what dude?” One of the young assistants asked his friend as they reviewed the data flow of Solstice’s quantum signature. His friend seemed engrossed in work. “Chad… dude, would you hit that or what?”

“She’s a minor dude. Nova or not, I ain’t going to jail for that.” Chad replied, tapping his stylus across the screen to highlight a portion of data to be sent to the printer.

“Minor?” The assistant asked, seeming a bit perplexed. “She said she was twenty two…”

Chad exhaled and rolled his eyes, obviously irritated. “You didn’t.”

“Wha-? No! No dude… no way. C’mon, seriously, I’m engaged, I love Heather.” His lie seemed to only half convince his friend and they quietly, if awkwardly, went back to work.

June, 21st 6:32pm

“Doctor Amir.” Chad approached the doctor offering him an electronic clipboard that was wirelessly accessing the network. “I think we found something.”

“Oh?” Dr. Amir cocked an eyebrow as he reached for his reading glasses.

“A steady decline in the amount energy. For the past six hours the level of energy emanating from her node has decreased. Look here,” Chad point to a chart that showed measurement in the amount of quantum energy Solstice had generated since she was placed under observation. “The highest spike was at exactly noon, on the dot.”

“Novas, always so punctual.” Amir said. Chad smiled at the doctor’s attempt at humor. “Alright, using noon as a starting point estimate the energy flow forward and break it down backward.”

“Already done sir, calculating backward, her hibernation began at exactly midnight last night. On that same note…”

“She’ll awaken tonight at midnight?” The doctor finished for him; he had solved this mystery at around three o’clock, but Chad was a bright a kid and Dr. Amir knew that if he had ample opportunity to exercise his mind he would become a great doctor one day.

“Well… maybe.” Chad shrugged. “I’d hate to assume and be wrong, but if this data is accurate it’s a safe conclusion.”

“We’ll see boy.” Dr. Amir handed Chad the hourly checklist. “Go how she’s doing eh boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

June, 22nd 12:00am

Sixteen hours had taken its toll on the members of Dr. Amir’s staff. Most sat around at the computers playing Solitaire or talking on their cell phones. There had been no change in Solstice’s condition in nearly five and a half hours except for a continued decline in the temperature; the staff could no longer enter the room and nova personnel capable of dealing with conditions that would flash freeze a baseline had been called in just in case the situation became too dangerous.

Bi-Polar, an ice borne, manic depressive, teenage nova that erupted while being bombarded with snowballs in an attempt to take his lunch money, was currently overseeing Solstice’s condition. He had never been very popular, and his eruption hadn’t changed that. In all his classes Solstice had always made sure he stayed ridiculed and picked on. It was no surprise when, like most men who receive attention (even negative attention) from incredibly attractive women, that he developed a crush on her.

He wiped the frost from her shimmering cage. Ambient light from machinery reflected through the facets of the ice sending it dancing about mostly the unlit room. “God you are soooo beautiful.” He murmured in a frosty breath. With none of the staff paying much attention, and not really thinking about the video surveillance Bi-Polar leaned in and smacked a kiss about lip level on Solstice’s tomb.

Her eyes shot open.

If Bi-Polar had known what a bejeezus was, he would have realized that it had been scared out of him. He cried out in surprised terror and fell backwards, sliding slightly across the slick icy floor. “Doctor! Doctor Amir!” He ran away from the ice spire slipping a few times as he frantically dashed toward the door.

Within her confines the beautiful young nova slowly clenched her fists, arcing her head back as she did so. Cracks appeared across the impossibly smooth surface of the ice that bound her inside.

“Temperature is increasing doctor! Negative 150! Negative 135!” A voice called out to Dr. Amir.

Dr. Amir stood transfixed on the sight in the room. “What secrets have you for us tonight my young nova child?” He whispered to himself as he watched cracks continue to form over the ice’s surface. Her skin changed its pigment and she became almost invisible as its azure hue blended almost perfectly in the blue of the room and her encasement. Slowly the black left her hair and it rippled into a shade of red that would have been impossible for any baseline salon to duplicate. “Incredible.” Dr. Amir whispered again.

“Negative 80! Negative 50! Doctor, the temperature is rising to quickly! Get away from the-” The technicians warning came too late. Violently the prison that held the young goddess exploded sending shards of powder and jagged ice in all directions. Instantly the liquid that was held in its center was frozen into a frosty slush. Electronics shorted and the room dissolved into chaos as each of the light fixtures exploded open showering the eerily lit room in white sparks.

Glass buckled under the sudden temperature change and the observation windows shattered into shards mixing themselves with the glass-like shards of ice. Dr. Amir felt several small cuts open on his face as he fell backwards, managing to raise a clipboard over his face in time as a jagged chunk of ice shattered against it. Technicians hid beneath desks and Bi-Polar, who had almost made it out of the room completely was thrown completely through the door and smashed less than gracefully against the far wall.

A slender azure foot touched against the damp surface of the laboratory’s tiled floor. Slowly and with fluid grace Solstice padded one foot in front of the other as the technical staff slowly rose their heads into view behind the shattered observation glass.

“S-Solstice?” Dr. Amir asked quietly, pulling himself to his feet and peering suspiciously through the door.

“Dr. Amir. Always a pleasure.” A slight grin curled up in the corner of her dark blue lips.

“How are you feeling, my dear?” He asked with the air of caution still in his voice.

“Naked, doctor.” She said with coldly. “Clothes, now. And inform your staff that if they do not avert their eyes I make sure they’ll regret being born.”

“O-of course.” He motioned to one of the assistants and he sped off to retrieve something for her to wear. “Summer, are you okay? How are you feeling?”

She cocked her eye at him. “I’m well rested doctor, I just needed a nap. I’m afraid you’re mistaken however; I haven’t seen Summer since she left for that party last night. You’re speaking with Autumn.”

Outside the lab Greg tapped a few numbers on his cell phone. After a moment he spoke quietly. “Sir, it’s me. We have a big problem…”

[Summer Solstice]

One week later…

“We’ve been monitoring her condition closely.” Greg, the Director’s personal assistant, said as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Physically, nothing is different. However, it is just as you said Director: she thinks she’s her dead sister. On a lighter side, she has been present for all her summer curriculum; her scores in the past week have all improved. Her training scores have improved. And thus far all her instructors have been very pleased with her behavior, no violent episodes, or… ahem… quantum accidents. ”

Director Cunningham leaned back in his overstuffed leather chair. It creaked in protest within the dimly lit office. “That a fact?”

“It is sir.”

“Well, does it have anything to do with our little… experiments?” He asked Greg as he casually sorted through a thick file, all pertaining to the nova called Solstice.

“Dr. Amir believes so. We know that the SOMA we prescribed to her was certainly a catalyst in this unfortunate mutation of her node.” Greg handed his boss an MRI scan detailing the workings of Solstice’s node. “However, the Doctor is also concerned that the aberrated node could be the result of dosages that greatly exceed what we had prescribed.”

The laminated sheet sat on his desk and the Director glanced at it casually. “What is this? What am I looking at here?”

“Well,” Circling to Director Cunningham’s side of the desk Greg looked over his shoulder, taking note of the lack of concern when he mentioned excessive doses of SOMA a moment ago, and began pointing at various sections of discoloration. “Well, as you see here, her node is no longer semi-spherical. It appears to have ‘taken root’ and begun branching out across the surface of her brain.” He guided his finger across the sheet. “You see where it’s branched out between the cerebral hemispheres? It’s made it beyond the frontal lobe and begun burrowing into her somatosensory cortex.”

“And all that means what Greg? Speak english?”

“In laymen’s terms sir?”

“Please.”

“This is one bat-shit crazy mutant you have on your hands sir.”

“Now, about liability?” Director Cunningham said, placing the scan in the folder and slapping it shut. “Her father may become a problem.”

“Not likely sir, he has a price.” He scooped the file up and proceeded to move through the office towards the bar. “Sir, if I may, what if the higher ups discover exactly what we’ve done here? Lacing a minor nova’s Mox with SOMA… you don’t think that was just a bit, I don’t know… extreme?”

“Nonsense,” Director Cunningham said, a sly grin found it’s way across his lips. “I was charged with discovering the effects of this drug on the nova physiology. Look at this girl Greg. She is everything that is wrong with the world today.” He began counting down on his fingers. “Greedy, shallow, spoiled, narcissistic, mean spirited, and generally nothing we as Americans,” He thrust a digit in Greg’s direction to help emphasize his upcoming point. “Especially Utopian Americans need representing us. Eventually her system will stress itself out, she’ll die, we’ll make look like she was an addict and the world is less one spoiled child that has all the charm of a sea-sick crocodile. Meanwhile we analyze the data.”

“Brandy sir?” His assistant raised the crystal decanter.

“Please.”

*****

George Fredrik Handel was kind enough to compose a soothing melody back in 1717 called ‘Water Music’ and currently one of its suites drenched Autumn’s room in a relaxing tone that helped her concentrate on the thirty eight page book report she was editing for the fourth time. She had slaved over this for the past two days and wasn’t about to get marked down for a misspelling or grammatical error. Slightly irritated she set down her pen and rubbed her eyes. “Ugh, not now. Please, I have to get this done.” She complained to herself as sharp pains behind her eyes and suddenly clouded vision distracted her from her assignment. Feeling dizzy she reached for a prescription bottle, twisted the cap and dropped a couple of tablets in her palm. With a toss of her head and a hefty gulp of white wine the moxinoquantimine was given the opportunity to do it’s job.

‘Summer In The City’ suddenly screamed through her large penthouse bedroom. It caught her off guard and suddenly sent her aching head in a spiral of pain and disorientation. She flipped the screen up and answered her phone, eager to silence the ring tone, as she collapsed on her bed. “What?” she snapped angrily.

“Well, aren’t you pissy.” Summer shot back. “Hey, Mom n’ Dad home yet?”

“No Summer, why? You staying out again tonight?” Autumn asked, wincing slightly as she rubbed her eyes and the bridge of her nose.

“Most likely. Hey, you okay? You just wake up or something?”

“Head hurts.” She replied dryly.

”Oh. Hey, check my bag, the black one near the entertainment center, on the little table. There’s some stuff in there that’ll help with that. It’s blue, can’t miss it. It gets rid of nodeaches like you wouldn’t believe.” Her voice was bubbly and enthusiastic at the thought of the buzz SOMA often left her with.

“Really?” Autumn asked, suddenly interested. “What is it?”

Dunno really, Dad said it’s something the Doctors say I need or I’ll get sick. Considering how alike we are, that’s most likely why your head is throbbing so bad.”

“Thank, I’ll consider it.” Autumn switched the phone to her other ear and changed her position so she was on her side. “Speaking of Dad… while I was gone, did he…”

“Anyway, I was just letting you know I wasn’t going to be around.” Summer cut her off before she could finish her question; her dodge of the topic was obvious. “I gotta go. Hope your head feels better! Bye!”

Slowly Autumn clenched her fist, which in turn closed the phone she was holding. Nothing had changed, and with Summer avoiding the penthouse like the plague it was only a matter of time before she would come face to face with her father. She already knew what she was going to tell him and as she recited it in her mind once more she could not shake the feeling that she had said all this to him once before, but when? The more she thought about it the sleepier she became and in a matter of seconds Autumn was blissfully napping in the comfort of her bed. Handel it seemed had seduced her into a blissful repose.