The Phoenix Wars: Book I, Reprieve Read online

  "I'll call my wife, and we'll be there within the hour."

  "Thank you, Mr. Trager," Carlson said and hung up. Martin loved his daughter with all his heart, but she had suddenly become moody and delinquent this past year. If she pressed charges… He placed his head in his hands, feeling like he had just slipped off a girder five stories in the air and was plunging toward an unknown outcome. Eventually, he reached for the phone and called Marie. It took several minutes for her to answer.

  "They said it was urgent, Martin," she said. The tone of her voice suggested he had interrupted something important, and she had no time to waste.

  "I got a call from the Mayo Clinic. They have Kayla and my mother there and want to speak to both of us as soon as possible. I told him we would be there within the hour," Martin said.

  "Is this about you striking her?" Marie asked, adding before he could answer, "Did you cause something serious?"

  "I have no idea, but speculating about why won't change the reason they want both of us. Do you want me to pick you up or to meet me there?"

  "I'll meet you there. It will be faster," Marie said, sounding as nervous as he felt.

  "Ask for Doctor Carlson," Martin said and hung up. He grabbed his jacket and told Naomi he had an emergency and wouldn't be back today as he hurried out of the building. He shook his head as he entered his new Ram 2500 at just how fast a good life could turn to shit. He could do jail time, he realized. Regardless of what awaited him at the Mayo Clinic, it wouldn't be good news.

  As he approached the Mayo Clinic building, he saw Marie's white Audi S7 pulling into the parking lot. He stood patiently waiting, not anxious to discover the reason for the summons to see Doctor Carlson.

  "This can't be good," Marie said as she neared. "I wonder if your mother decided to take her to emergency."

  "It's possible, but I doubt it unless Kayla developed some problem from my…slap. She knows it could involve the police, and she isn't fond of government involvement," he said as he held the glass door for her to enter, then proceeded to the information booth. "Miss," he said to the young redhead at the booth, "I'm Mr. Trager. Can you tell me where I can find Doctor Carlson? He asked me to meet him here at the clinic."

  The young woman frowned as she scanned her monitor, tapped a few keys, and then smiled as she turned back to him. "Yes, sir, he's in office 201. The elevators are to your right."

  "I don't think I've felt so nervous since…ever. There can't be a good outcome to this," Martin said. "When I proposed to you, there was a bad outcome as you could have said no and a good outcome if you said yes. Waiting for the decision for the vice-president position at Western Construction had a bad but also a good possible outcome. Here, there are only bad ones. I can't even imagine a good one," Martin said as they rode the elevator to the second floor.

  "My God. Maybe she is pregnant!" Marie gasped. "She mentioned headaches and nausea."

  The elevator door was beginning to close before they realized they were on the second floor when a man in green scrubs stopped the door from closing and entered the elevator.

  "Can you tell me where office 201 is located?" Martin asked the man while using his arm to stop the elevator door from closing. He pointed to the right. They exited and stood looking down the hallway as if it led to the gates to hell. At the door, Martin stood, staring at the brass plate with A. G. Carlson engraved in black, unable to move. He felt that opening that door would unravel his life forever. Marie knocked several times, giving him a let's get this over with look. Several seconds later, the door opened, and a distinguished-looking man with silver-hair stood.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Trager?" he asked, waiting for acknowledgement before opening the door fully and stepping back. "Please have a seat." He waved to the two empty chairs in front of his desk. Kayla and his mother were already seated. His mother looked pale and dejected. Kayla, on the other hand, looked calm somehow. Martin wanted to shout "sorry" to Kayla and to run to his princess and hug her when he saw the right side of her face. Her eye was swollen nearly shut, and the right side from her ear to her nose was one mass of ugly discolored skin. Tears swelled up in his eyes. Marie's mouth hung open in shock. Carlson spoke before they could move.

  "That bruise looks far worse than it is. Nothing more than a few broken small blood vessels. Apparently, it happened while she was attempting to navigate to her bathroom," he said, but he didn't sound convinced, judging by the brief tightening of his eyes as they swept Martin and Marie and his next comment. "Kayla didn't come here for the bruise; she came because she has been having headaches, nausea, and dizziness for the past year."

  Martin couldn't help a sigh of relief until he suddenly realized that might have been the better of their options.

  "Doctor Norman sent her for a routine CT scan because of the head injury. The CT scan indicated the need for further tests. Subsequently, we took blood samples, ran an MRI and an MRE. I am afraid the results confirm she has glioblastoma, a malignant brain tumor more frequently found in adults."

  "What are you recommending, Doctor?" Martin asked, hoping desperately for a miracle treatment or that a surgical procedure existed, but Carlson's eyes said no before he did.

  "There is no cure for glioblastoma. There are treatments to help ease the symptoms."

  "How long?" Marie asked, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  "Normally a year, give or take a few months; however, our tests on Kayla indicate she has had the tumor for close to a year–"

  "NO!" Marie screamed as she leaped out of the chair and rushed to kneel beside Kayla and pulled her into a hug.

  "And we've made your life a living hell this last year." Martin was openly crying, realizing how badly he had misjudged his daughter. When he looked toward Kayla, she had a small smile on her adorable face.

  Chapter 3

  Not What I Expected

  At home, Grandma made dinner. The mood at the table was depressing as everyone attempted to act normal when they were anything but.

  I had a right to be depressed, knowing I was going to die before the year ended, and this was already September, but I was at peace. The last year had been a nightmare, and I had been ready to commit suicide. At least now, I would be free for so long as I had left and treated with love and not as an out-of-control delinquent. No desperate surgery, no chemotherapy, and no dying in some hospital ward attached to machines. Free.

  "Stop that!" I said rather loudly. "My condition is no one's fault, not yours, not mine. The past can't be changed, and there is no cure in my future. So let's try to enjoy the time I have left on Earth." I laughed. "From my perspective, I'm standing in the world's largest candy store, and I can have anything I want, whether it's good for me or not."

  That produced weak smiles from everyone and seemed to perk up my father.

  "What do you want, Kayla? Name it," he said, mentally opening his wallet, bank account, and ready to mortgage the house if necessary.

  "For now, I'm content knowing you love me, and you are there if I need you. I'm going to be a Today person. I will be born anew each day and do my best to enjoy it. Right now, Grandma's Jägerschnitzel looks delicious, and I'm hungry."

  The next month was everything I could have wished for. My physical condition varied day-by-day, some days relatively good and others bad. The medicine Doctor Carlson prescribed helped, and mentally I was healthy and enjoying myself. After last year, this was heaven.

  That ended one morning, several weeks later. I woke to find I couldn't move. I thought my body had shut down, and I was dying or dead. But when I opened my eyes and looked around, I found I wasn’t in my bedroom. I lay strapped to a bed in a room the size of a gymnasium, with gray metal walls and filled with a hundred or more occupied beds. In a way, it looked like a triage facility after a major disaster. Judging by the chorus of shouts and curses and lack of moaning, the injuries didn't appear serious. Yet everyone was strapped to their bed. When I tried to move my arms and legs, I discovered I was restrained by straps across my a
nkles, chest, and wrists.

  Just then, the door at the head of the room opened, and a figure with an over-sized purple hood and floor-length robe entered.

  "Welcome." The sound came through the speakers, which hung around the room near to the ceiling, not from the direction of the figure. He held up a gloved hand from the folds of his robe as everyone began shouting questions and curses. He said nothing as he waited for the room to become quiet. "In time, all your questions will be answered; however, they will be answered one at a time in the order I choose. You will get your answers faster if you keep quiet and listen." He paused and appeared to be scanning the room based on the movement of his hood. "Excellent. You all have one thing in common. You each have an incurable medical condition and will die within a month or two since your planet lacks the technology to cure you–" The speakers went quiet as a storm of questions were shouted. The hooded man had to wait for a full five minutes before the room became quiet. "Good. Where was I?" the hooded figure said and paused. "Oh, yes, your planet lacks the technology to cure you. Therefore, without a miracle, you have only months to live. That is your common denominator and the reason you were selected–" He stopped again when the shouting and questions began. This time, he left the room. After what seemed like hours, he returned carrying a cup of something hot as he was blowing on it. When he looked up, he began speaking again. "If you stop me too often, I'm going to lose my place, and you will have to endure me repeating what I've already told you, or I'm going to skip something I thought I told you but didn't." He stopped as if thinking. "I remember...without a miracle, you have only months to live. Earth is not only not alone in the Milky Way but also rather backward. Something like 2000 AD versus 5000 BC." Several people began to speak but stopped mid-sentence. The room held its collective breath as the speaker took a step toward the door, then stopped. "Backward compared to many other species, but to be fair, ahead of a few others. I'm told it's lunchtime, so I will stop for now." He turned and exited as two men and two women entered directing carts that had no wheels and appeared to be floating. As one woman approached my bed, the straps holding my wrists and across my chest released, and I could sit up. She handed me a bowl, a large spoon, and a hunk of bread from the cart and, without a word, continued on to the next bed. I dipped the spoon into the bowl and sipped at the thick brown contents. It tasted like a variation of Grandma's goulash, similar but different. The bread was crisp and tasted spiced. A plastic cup I hadn't noticed the woman leave contained water with a hint of lemon. Overall a nutritious and tasty meal. Sometime later, the same people returned and retrieved the bowls, cups, and spoons.

  Not long afterward, the same four individuals entered again with two metal units. From my angle, the units looked like metal rectangular boxes two meters long, fifty centimeters wide, and fifteen centimeters deep, which stood waist-high supported by four legs. I could see no wheels. As I watched, the units rose two centimeters off the ground and began gliding into the room. One person walked behind each unit with a small tablet. The units were steered to the first bed in rows one and two. The men in the beds began shouting and protesting as their straps were reattached. Afterward, each unit was positioned over the bed and then dropped to the floor to rest on the legs. The operator touched the tabletop, and a light appeared, moving across the bed from foot to the head and back again. The operator recorded something on his tablet before moving to the next bed, where the procedure was repeated.

  When the team reached my bed, I saw the man looked like any European male and the woman like a typical Asian. I felt nothing as the light passed over my body.

  "What are you doing?" I asked. They ignored me like they hadn't heard me speak. I wondered if they didn't understand English, were instructed not to speak, or were under some compulsion. When they had finished the six rows, they left through the same door they had entered.

  While they worked, my brain tried to come to grips with what was happening. I remember going to bed around midnight after watching an old war movie with Tom Hanks and woke up here, wherever here was. But how? Surely, I would have remembered being transported from home to here or at least leaving home. I could feel my arms and legs, so I couldn't be dead, and my skin looked normal, so I still had blood flowing through my arteries. Nothing but my location had changed. I even had my ever-present headache and felt nauseated, so my condition remained the same. The purple-hooded man had said we all had an incurable medical condition and would die within a month or two. "Nooooo!" I shrieked, thinking I could be in some research institute, a lab rat, having my last remaining days, weeks stolen. My heart pounded in my chest, and I threw up. As I looked around, others were struggling to get free of their bed, and the noise in the room reached hysteria. Then I noticed two women in white uniforms were cleaning up the mess I had made. One handed me a plastic cup of lemon-tasting water, which I accepted gratefully as my mouth tasted like a toxic waste dump. I swished it around in my mouth, spat it into the small plastic container the second woman gave me, and then took a drink from the cup. The Asian-looking woman smiled warmly but said nothing.

  They had no sooner departed than the mystery man in purple returned. He waited patiently for silence.

  "The good news is that the medics assure me we can cure your current medical problems and return you to excellent health and a normal lifespan. Of course, like most everything in life, the cure comes with a price–" He paused as the room exploded with questions. The shouting and talking continued long after the man had left the room. It was a long time before he returned. "I realize you have many questions, and they will all be answered in due time. But we have found that it's days faster if you let me enlighten you in a logical order rather than trying to answer your random questions." He paused. "That price is you will never see Earth again."

  The room was deathly quiet as I, and I suspect everyone in the room, tried to come to terms with the robed man's pronouncement. If not Earth, where? Heaven or Hell? Would it be worth living as a slave on some godforsaken mining planet? Would we have a choice, or had someone already decided? I felt like throwing up again but managed to hold it down.

  "My homeworld is not a slave colony," the robed man said as if he had read my mind. "It is much like Earth. An inhabitable planet with breathable air, drinkable water, and moderate temperatures. You will have a choice of several occupations and receive training. For example, the people in white you saw are medical staff who a few years ago were just like you, dying of some disease or medical condition. They have evaluated each of your current conditions and have determined we have the capability to cure you–"

  "Why not just cure us and return us to our homes?" someone shouted. The robed man stood still waiting. I had the feeling he would leave again as he had done before if there were any more questions. When none came, he spoke. "You have a need, and we have a need. Your need is a cure. Our need is people to immigrate to our planet and help us survive. Much like early America. Like then, it's your choice whether to immigrate or not." He paused to sip from the cup he held. "I wish I could give you an insight into my world, but your window to return will close in one hour. So you have one hour to decide." He pointed to a large clock with four faces that was being lowered into the middle of the room. "Each of your beds has a red button on the left side. You must press that button before the hour is up if you wish to return to Earth." I noticed that the digital clock had begun its countdown as he closed the door behind him.

  The decision seemed a simple one to me. Do I want to die within a month, possibly in considerable pain, or take my chances that this new world isn't what the man in purple described? That it wasn't what I first imagined: a place where they would use us to experiment on, or alternatively, a hellish nightmare run by demonic creatures? But if it were, why would they give us the opportunity to return? I wished I could say goodbye to my parents and Oma, but that wasn't an option. I decided I had died on Earth and was being reborn anew here, wherever that was, and would make the best I could of each day.
/>   Chapter 4

  No Good Options

  I woke strapped down again, thinking this wasn't a good sign. Others around me were also beginning to wake, and the noise level in the room began to increase with each passing minute as they realized they were immobilized, prisoners. It subsided somewhat when the door opened and the mystery man in purple entered. Eventually, the room became silent when he stopped in the middle of the room. At the same time, the straps holding our wrists and chest were released so we could sit up.

  "We have been traveling for three days, during which time the medics have been treating your medical conditions. I'm happy to report that you have all been successfully treated and are in good health." That generated a burse of comments which quickly quieted. Like Pavlov's dog, we had been conditioned well by our mystery man. "Very good. One learns very little when talking and much when listening. As I mentioned, those of us in purple are designated teachers and native to your new home, the planet Anixia. Since we will be landing in several hours, let me give you a brief history lesson." He pointed to the four monitors hanging on the walls at the ends of the room and in the middle on both sides. "This is a video of the planet," he said as the video appear to be moving around the planet past jagged mountains, barren landscape of prairies, deserts, and oceans. There were no cities or even tents, yet they obviously had spacecraft technology. "The planet appears barren for a reason. The Milky Way is filled with evil sentient life forms." He stopped while the video continued. "We evolved much like you did on Earth, in the oceans. Then like you, we left the oceans and crawled onto the land where we continue to evolve." The video now showed small things leaving the water and slowly evolving into larger animals. "But where life on Earth exited the protection of the trees and evolved their minds to survive on the land, we on Anixia took to the air. We probably wouldn't have developed significant intelligence except we too had predators who sought us out, but rather than try to kill them, we developed ways to discourage them. As we evolved, we built beautiful dwellings on the tops of mountains." Although his voice still came through the speakers in the room, I felt a wishful tone to his last words. Then I saw the picture of what looked like a fairytale glass castle perched on the top of a snow-covered mountain. It sparkled in the sun like it was alive. "Then the Tullizor, demons evolved from lizards, invaded our land. They destroyed our homes, hunted us like vermin, and established bases on our land. But our medical knowledge was far superior to the Tullizor's. We used our knowledge of deoxyribonucleic acid, that's your term for the molecule that contains our genetic codes, to make the planet uninhabitable for them. When they left, we began to rebuild, but they returned periodically and destroyed everything we had built, almost annihilating the Anixia people. We have always been a peaceful race who lived off the land. Consequently, we had developed no tools of war, and we could fly, so we needed no air vehicles. To survive the Tullizor's periodic raids, we moved underground, giving the Tullizor nothing to destroy. But they knew we still existed and scorched our land with their ugly weapons, tainting the land for centuries. Living underground was destroying our…souls. We were made to fly free and to inhabit the highest mountains but were buried in underground dens like rodents." He stopped talking as the voice shook with despair. "So we built ships of war and fought, but the cost was high. Our ships were superior but relied on artificial intelligence to fight as we are a peaceful race and do not have the killer instinct. The Tullizor are predators and have excellent instincts that proved superior during our encounters. By accident, one of our ships found Earth. Our subsequent studies of Earth and its people revealed you to be natural predators who love war; however, your medical knowledge was far inferior to ours. You can deduce the rest. We need your natural predatory instincts to help us and maybe Earth as the Tullizor will eventually stumble across your planet as we did." With that, he threw off his cape to reveal a figure with short thin body and legs, massive wings extending to the floor, small four-fingered hands extending from the limbs that supported wings, and a normal size head with a beak. Around his neck hung a small black box. "As you can see, I need a translator to talk to you as my mouth cannot make the sounds you do." This time, he didn't leave when the talking began. When the room silenced, he began speaking. "I apologize for the restraints and for not allowing your questions, but we have found over the years it is best for you and us. In the beginning, we had several very unfortunate instances. One group attempted to take over the ship. They succeeded but are now all dead. You can't fly our ships, and there is insufficient food on board to last more than a month. Even if there were years of food, you would die of your existing medical conditions. It's far better to wait until you are cured and understand the situation."