Saturday, March 21, 2015
{{The end...! And...setup for the next book! Oh noes!}}
Kanor
found himself awake abruptly, torn out of whatever dream state he had
been in. The sheets were tangled up around his body, Marcie's
absence something he was inexplicably having issues getting used to.
Their last...interaction earlier in the day was bad enough, and he
told himself he'd back off on his investigation as soon as he was
convinced she was truly herself. The return of his solitary sleeping
situation he would just need to deal with. In comparison to the
extent of his life so far, his time spent sleeping beside her was
probably a fraction of a percent. Given his projected expected life
span, he wasn't even sure if he'd remember that minute amount of
time. It made no sense for it to be troubling him. And yet...
He
felt the hairs on the back of his neck, along his chest, arms, and
legs...standing up. Alert. Something was wrong. He kept his body
still, hoping to give the illusion he was still asleep, as he
attempted to crack his eyes just enough to see, his attention to his
senses ramping up as he tried to understand why his body felt full of
adrenaline, why his instincts were practically screaming at him to do
something, to not just lie there like an invalid. But why? There
was no alert condition occurring aboard Enterprise. Cypher would
have alerted him if someone had broken into his quarters while he
slept, even if they had managed to get past his other defenses
without her noticing. Was it the unidentified spy, the person who
had attempted to gather more information about him? Were they making
some sort of final, desperate act, in lieu of him botching some sort
of future plan they had by simply being present aboard the ship?
His
eyes swept the room through the thin sliver of his eyelids, light
coming in through the windows, the vista of deep space sweeping by
the only illumination. His nostrils flared just the slightest amount
as he attempted to keep the matching inhalation in-line with that of
someone asleep.
“You
can stop pretending, you're not fooling anyone, least of all me.”
He
bolted upright, his arms coming up in a defensive position over his
lower face and upper chest. He had spent his entire adult life
sleeping with daggers in the bed with him specifically for situations
like this, but they had creeped Marcie out, so he had stopped.
Instead, he had settled for placing them just above the headboard of
the bed. He hadn't thought to move them back where they belonged,
and now...now he would have to turn his back on the foot of the bed,
where the voice had come from, to retrieve them. He had a unique set
of eyes, perhaps he could...
“Lights!”
He
had hoped to temporarily blind the intruder, give him those extra few
seconds to identify the person, possibly even arm himself or get out
of the damn bed. Instead, however, the person didn't even flinch,
merely stared back at him from their perch on the seat between the
office door and the replicator. Unfazed, unimpressed.
His
face.
He
recoiled, pushing against the surface of the bed with his hands and
legs in an attempt to get as much space as possible between himself
and...himself. He stammered, stumbled; his left hand had struck
against the edge of the bed and he had nearly lost his balance.
“What
the...”
The
person in the chair was him, and yet...different. Kanor's brow
furrowed as he quickly studied a face he was intimately familiar
with, started noticing little details here and there. Wrinkles that
didn't belong, scars. The multiple streaks of gray and white in the
unkempt mane of hair that was...unruly, at best. His eyes swept
downward. The extra heft in the frame, the unfamiliar clothes. The
very recognizable, weathered grip of a Varon-T disruptor tucked into
the belt in the exact same place he kept his. The posture,
the...eyes. His gaze had swept back up to clash against the one
sitting in that chair, and he saw, undeniably, himself. There was
more...something than he had ever seen in his own eyes looking in the
mirror, but...they were his. His mind reeled , his entire being
telling him this was fundamentally wrong. Impossible. Not right.
Abhorrent.
“We
need to talk.”
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