Free Helix by Viola Grace Page B

She recognized it even though the last time she had seen it clearly, she had been inside it. The metal plates on either side of her clear pane caught her attention. They were the same size as the tank, and it got her thinking that she might not have been a singular captive of the medical staff.
    Carefully, standing on feet that were almost as soft as her hands, she wrapped the sheet around her and took a few shaking steps toward the metal plates. With intuition, she touched a small raised pad on the wall and when the metal slid up, she heard the shout from Nero through the roaring in her head.
    In the tank floated a man who wasn’t injured but in early stages of development. He wasn’t being healed; he was being cloned.
    She closed the panel again and turned to her restorer. “I think you need to explain.”
    Nero’s skin was paler than before when he gestured for her to resume her seat. “You are going to need to sit for this.”
    Harmony hopped up onto the table. “For what? I am a clone. Where is the original me?”
    Nero winced. “She is dead. Nothing survives coming through the storm, but we can regenerate you to the point at which you died. That is where we find ourselves today.”
    “Where is my body?”
    “Cold storage. We always keep the original until the restored version is mobile and whole.”
    “Show me. I need to see me.” Harmony’s mind was still in shock, so what was one more surprise to add to the fire? She had always been one to get things over with.
    “That is unwise. Most newly restored folk cannot deal with being face to face with themselves.”
    “I am not most. I am me, and I need to see it. Please.” She added the last when she saw him waver. Sure enough, it tipped him over the edge.
    “Come with me. Remove your wrap. If you are carrying it, they will know that you are right out of the tank. That will not get you into the storage facility.”
    She winced but set the sheet aside and stood proudly in the strange wire and leaves of metal that covered her. “Fine. May we go now?”
    “Please, but stay next to me and laugh at whatever I say. They will be off their guard if you appear to be on a date.”
    She sighed and nodded. “Whatever you say. Lead the way.”
    He offered her his arm, and she took it gratefully. The suit was protecting the soles of her feet, but her legs were still unsteady. She would take all the help he offered.
    Now, where the hell was her body?

Chapter Two
     
     
    Harmony tensed when she saw the first being that wasn’t Nero. The male nodded to them and passed them by without doing more than giving her body a cursory glance.
    She had to admit that she was slightly offended. She looked good and she knew it, but wearing as little as she was, she should have elicited more of a response.
    Nero glanced at her, and he chuckled at her expression. “You are wearing the bands of one who is newly restored, and I am dressed as your physician. No one will interfere with you unless there is good reason.”
    “Wait. This happens a lot?”
    He shrugged. “We all came through a storm, a rift, a bolt or a power fluctuation. I don’t know who the first restorer was, but he or she set up the equipment and procedures we use today to seek life in those who fall.”
    “Fall?”
    “Everyone who comes to us falls. When we leave the facility, I will show you.”
    He kept a slow pace for her, and she occasionally felt the caress of his hair or the colder touch of one of the beads attached to a braid skimming across the back of her thighs.
    Questions popped up in her mind, but she throttled them back as they ended their walk down a hall and daylight flirted with her vision.
    When they stepped into the light, she had trouble breathing. Nowhere on all of the worlds that she had visited had she ever seen something like the vista in front of her.
    Ancient buildings, carved, grown and twisted out of stone were dotted around rivers, streams and creeks of a liquid that hummed with light.