EDGE OF DAY

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

She vaguely saw the arch-vaulted ceiling as high as a cathedral, the roman pillars, the cloister arches all around the outskirts, but their beauty was nothing in comparison to the flares and waves of energy at the atrium's center. They were more awesome and strange than the light flares on the winter equinox. It wasn't just their changing colors and pulsing patterns that mesmerized her. It was the music--a  deep ocean of electric sound that resembled the most exquisite, profoundly moving music beyond her imagination. She gaped, fixed to the spot.

Will moved closer, an arm raised, fingers stretched towards it.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" A voice boomed. Ferdinando. She spun around, but couldn't see him. And then there he was, a figure floating in the air just meters from the energy porthole. He descended, and she realized he was in some kind of anti-gravity pressure tube.

"Will James Van de Berg," Ferdinando said. Again his voice thundered as though projected upwards and across a reverberating ceiling. "Here at last."

A frisson ran down Day's spine. She didn't trust Ferdinando. And no one had answered her question about why the Veda wanted Will so much. Will seemed unaware of what was going on. The energy flux transfixed the whole of his attention.

"Allow me to introduce The Lady," Ferdinando said.

Day swallowed. Now she was closer to Will and closer to the energy, she could feel it vibrating in her blood and bones. The desire to be inside it, to meld oneself to it was palpable. Will watched the energy streams. His lips began moving, as though repeating a poem or story he'd learned.

Ferdinando stepped out of the suspension tube that had lifted him to the ground, and circled around the back of Will, satisfied by Will's spellbound state. He walked towards Day and stood so their shoulders were touching. She leaned away.

He murmured in her ear. "What do you think he sees?"

Her shoulders stiffened. What could Will see? There were only blazes of colored light.

"What do you think he hears?" Ferdinando continued. 

He was implying Will could perceive the doorway differently to them. "Why would he hear or see anything we don't?"

"He has the code. His father planted it deep in the hippocampus region of his brain when he was a baby. His entire way of seeing and thinking has grown inside the code like a membrane wrapping around his memories."

So the Veda wanted Will for a code. But what did the code do? And if they extracted it, would that mean Will no longer existed? Like when they extracted Day's personality, Day would vanish, soaked up and absorbed into Dayna.

"Come," Ferdinando said. "It's time for you to retrieve your memories."

"No. I don't want them."

Ferdinando unglued his gaze from Will and moved his curious, sparkling eyes to Day. "I'll make you a deal. You retrieve your memories, and then you can decide whether to take off the leech. It will disintegrate, anyway."

Wasn't it supposed to have dissolved already? Maybe it had been damaged by the Junas implant. Maybe it wouldn't disintegrate.

"We are all eager to get Dayna back."

"All except me. Besides, you didn't seem to mind when I almost died in the space carrier or at the police station."

"You've trained intensively for two years. I was confident you could do this or I wouldn't have let you sign up for it."