The Alejandra Variations (29 page)

Rhoanna Martín looked about her at the wonders in the sky and in the ruins. "This, I guess," she said with a gesture that encompassed everything.

"This?" Qui looked at her curiously. "What do you mean by 'this'?"

"Alejandra," Rhoanna Martin said.

Then, as if timed perfectly to Rhoanna Martín's fateful words, the crimson blasts of pleasure crashed around him. He fell to the ground.

It was embarrassing.

"Are you all right?" the woman asked. She looked alarmed; she did not know what was going on.

She came close to where he lay and placed a warm hand on his shoulder. For a moment he felt a slight tremor through his body. It was not unpleasant. It had a feeling of connectedness. Her touch was the only thing in the world that seemed real.

He looked up at her. Her voice seemed so familiar, yet so remote. She could've been sent by the Elders to look for this Nicholas—and he, Qui, was merely a victim of circumstances. Perhaps she was an Elder herself, an Elder so powerful as not to require an ally bracelet. But that was almost beyond belief.

More ecstatic "messages" encircled his pleasure-racked flesh.

"What's happening to you?" the woman asked, standing back.

Qui held up a hand. "It's not your fault," he panted. "I'm getting used to this sort of thing."

The allies in his jewel chimed out. "It's almost in, Qui. Wait."

Rhoanna helped him over to a broken pillar, where he sat down with a grateful sigh.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"I believe I'm receiving messages for your friend Nicholas," he told her with much chagrin. "Excuse me," he smiled, as several long and short reddish-purple concussions burst around him.

Then the crimson warrior-caste allies disappeared back into their jewel.

"We've translated the message, Qui," the allies told him.

Rhoanna looked on, fascinated.

"Well? What is it?" Qui demanded.

It merely said, "
You're mine, Nickie, all mine.
"

That was when Rhoanna Martín gasped at the starry darkness, staring at him.

Qui still shook from the rapturous pleasures which had pummeled his body. She pointed a nervous, almost accusatory finger at him.

"My God," she whispered. "Nick!
You're
Nick!"

Qui froze. The expression upon Rhoanna Martín's face was one of real surprise—it was obvious that she saw something in his situation that he did not. Perhaps the ruins were havens for insane people. Nemosten. Rhoanna Martín. Alejandra. Some were allowed ally bracelets, others not. They could even wear clothes. It made sense.

He was miserably confused.

She bravely stepped closer to him.

"That's right," she said excitedly. "They said that in this vision of the future she was doing something strange to you, and this is it."

Qui stood away from the pillar. "Listen to me. I don't know who you are, or what this is all about. But I do know that I am
not
this person you're seeking." He then pointed to her right wrist. "And I still want to know where your ally bracelet is."

"Oh, no," she was insistent. "It's you, Nick. I know it's you! They told me she had you trapped and wouldn't let you go. But they didn't tell me you'd look so different."

"Damn the Elders!" he cried out. "I'm
not
your Nick! Has everybody gone crazy all of a sudden?"

The surges of pleasure throughout his body had done something to him. He didn't mind the jolts so much as the idea that he was being used as a medium of transmission. And then to be victimized by apparently deranged individuals when all he wanted was to be left alone was a little too much.

It was clear that Rhoanna Martín was very aware of his uneasiness. She was also confused. A slight breeze wafted through the feathertrees of the ruin, spinning a beauteous music as it went.

With great trepidation, she began, "Well, they did say that you might be in a different form. But they also said I'd have no problem recognizing you. They said something about incarnations, about how this might be a different version of you. I just
know
it's you, Nick."

His head was swirling with nonsense. Rhoanna Martín seemed so sincere; and so rational were her words that there was no way he could simply regard her as insane, even without her ally bracelet.

However,
someone
wanted Nicholas Tejada, and that particular someone was using Qui's body to get to him—or at least trying to.

"So, you think this Nicholas person is an incarnation of mine?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said softly. "But they told me that the first person I would meet when I got here would be Nicholas. You were the only one around. But something about you feels right."

How could such a thing be? The whole concept behind reincarnation was that an atma's accumulated karma had to be worked off through a succession of lives. Nicholas Tejada had had his turn. Now it was Qui's moment on the Great Wheel. According to the laws of
dharma
, Tejada's karma would be passed on down the line. It would be part of Qui's life, some- thing he'd have to work out.

"Allies," he finally commanded.

"We are here," they dutifully responded.

"Who is this Nicholas Tejada person?"

Rhoanna watched him closely, shifting her gaze from his face to the cluster of miraculous voices speaking from his wrist.

"One of us," they told him.

"One of
me
, you mean."

"Yes," they agreed. "Shall he be summoned forth?"

Qui thought about all the Nicholases, and of the millions of incarnations, who bore that name. Each would have led different lives. Some on the earth. Some in space. They would have seen the entire history of the planet unfold.

"I think it would be prudent to get to the bottom of this," Qui said.

"What are you going to do?" Rhoanna asked. Her eyes were like dark stars in the night. He found her quite lovely, certainly more so than Elena. Elena's obsessiveness ruined her physical beauty. He'd never told her that because she usually consorted with citizens who danced to her tune more readily. Rhoanna Martín was different.

"Prepare for transfer," Qui said to his allies. "Summon Tejada. I want to find out what this is all about."

"As you wish," they said.

Rhoanna gasped. The allies flashed out from the bracelet in a luminescent shell, engulfing Qui completely, undulating and shimmering in all their glory.

Qui became just another ally, and now it was Nicholas who stood forth.

Wide awake, he stood in the crystalline light as if he'd just woken from a dream. He blinked several times and shuddered, shaking off the birth pangs of his transformation. When his mind cleared he saw Rhoanna.

She stepped away from the pillar with a slight smile on her face.

"Nick?"

"Rhoanna!" It was like a vision of the heavenly host.

He looked around with the quick glance of a finch suddenly set free from its cage. He stared at Rhoanna.

"Rhoanna," he started. "What are you doing here?"

She stepped over to him carefully. "Listen, Nick. They sent me to try to find you. This is really weird, honey. It's nothing like they said it would be
at all.
"

Nicholas was more than a little confused. "Wait, wait!" he told her. "Slow down. What are you talking about? What is this place, anyway?"

He looked at her, standing there so inescapably real—and the earth and sky around him so inescapably unreal.

A memory came back to him:
There she was. Standing in a doorway at dawn. San Diego. Her clandestine lover is leaving. There is a glow of deep sexual satisfaction on her face.…

He staggered. What had happened to Cesya? And there had been a younger girl, even further back in time than she. Lexie. Insatiable Lexia of the world which had survived that terrible war.

His mind seemed to lose its hinge pins. How long had he been held in this mnemonic stasis?

And Elena! Who was Elena?

"I'm losing my mind," he said.

Rhoanna Martín had been dead for millions—if not billions—of years. She had to be! Nothing else made sense, unless Qui's whole life on the earth had been a dream, an illusion.

Yet, there she was, real as could be, right in front of him.

Rhoanna spoke slowly, carefully. "Listen, Nick, they said this was going to be a great shock. But they said not to worry. I really had my doubts about coming in here like this…"

"Hold on," he interrupted her. "Just hold it a minute. Who are you talking about?"

Rhoanna cleared her throat. "Melissa Salazar," she said. "She said that Alejandra had transformed you, and that they couldn't get you out." She paused as he tried to take in the information and make some sense of it. She seemed contrite, somehow. Embarrassed. She looked at him. "I realize that after all that's happened between us I shouldn't be here, but they told me they'd tried everything else they could think of."

"Melissa?" Nicholas stared at her. It was like a bolt of lightning. "You mean Melissa
Salazar?
"

"Yes," Rhoanna said quickly. "They said that Alejandra's really got you and that she isn't letting go."

I am definitely losing my mind, he thought.

"I wish someone would tell me what's going on here," he said, turning around to face the sky.

"But, don't you know? They said you'd probably know what's happening by now."

She looked like Rhoanna. She sounded like Rhoanna. "Listen," he said. "I just woke up to all of this. I don't know where I am or how you even got here!"

If this is a dream, he thought, it's a real humdinger.

Rhoanna touched him gently. "Mnemos Nine went sentient about three months ago when you went under at the time of the Scare. This is all a dream. Melissa said they've been in after you several times, but Alejandra won't let go. Don't you know you're still plugged into the system?"

Nicholas spun around. Rhoanna's words had hardly been spoken when he'd seen something glitter deep within the chuckling stream which ran down the ancient avenue.

The creek suddenly burst apart with life and light, and a long, multicolored streamer of allies shattered forth and soared past him.

"Rhoanna!" he yelled, turning.

The enormous wave of superhot allies lashed out angrily and swarmed around Rhoanna Martín with the fury of ten thousand exploding suns.

Qui's allies protected him, but Rhoanna was instantly consumed in a hellfire of blinding light. What was left of her fell to the charred grasses, trailing ugly banners of smoke.

"My God," Nicholas breathed from within his fortress of Qui's strongest allies.

Elena rose from the creek, her long ash-blond hair soaking wet and pressed against the smooth skin of her back. She climbed onto the broken avenue with a kind of sepulchral pride. Anger smoldered in her eyes. Her allies spun around her, vassels waiting to serve their queen.

Nicholas forced himself to his feet. Qui's allies kept a thick hull of light between him and the furious woman.

"You killed her!" he said.

"She was just an illusion. I didn't kill anyone. You ought to know that. Those who are jealous of me don't want me to have anything to do with you. But they don't belong here."

Nick had Qui's memories. And though those memories seemed illusions, he still knew enough about Elena to realize that he was in a great deal of danger. What he needed was time to think this through.

Could he still be in Mnemos Nine? Was that possible?

Elena stepped slowly out onto the turf. Her allies had all swarmed back into her bracelet, and she stood before him virtually basking in the light Qui's armed allies cast in the night.

She smiled. It was the smile of a child who had finally got what she wanted. She meticulously squeezed water out of her rope of hair, then smoothed the droplets from her breasts with her hands. In a slow, easy motion her hands passed down the sides of her ribs, to her wide hips.

Though Nick stood protected by Qui's allies, he could feel her massive sexual pull. His body, while enjoying the tease, was at the same time aware of her threat.

Elena was trying to get to him any way she could. What was Elena's relation to Alejandra? If he was in Mnemos Nine—and this he could not quite believe—he could be in a great deal of trouble. Elena could be part of the whole scenario. Her enigmatic words suggested as much.

He looked into her eyes, and saw the souls of spiders.

She laughed then, and in that laughter springs of unpleasant recollections returned to him. His betrayal and loss were always someone else's gain.

"No one can take you from me," she said. "Not even illusions. Whether you stay as Qui or as Nicholas, it doesn't matter. You're mine, and you always will be."

The body of Rhoanna Martín dissolved in the wind. Within seconds nothing was left but a pile of ash, and then that too was gone. It was as if Rhoanna Martín had never existed.

What kind of game was Elena playing? Or was it reality? The way Rhoanna had made it sound, it seemed as if his mind and body were being manipulated merely for Elena's pleasure—and his pain. And from what he recalled of Qui's life—as dreamlike as it seemed to him—it had been so. Elena had been everywhere in his life.

"The situation is now completely in my control," she announced.

It was just the kind of blank statement of the facts a computer would make. Mnemos Nine. Alejandra!

Elena's next move took him entirely by surprise. She merely walked over, and with her bare hands spread apart his layer of allies and shooed them away as if they were fireflies of a summer's evening.

"Hey!" he yelled.

She laughed. "I can do without allies for a while. They're such nuisances."

The goddess stood before him. Her eyes glowed in the night. Her smile had become elfin, prankish. And though he was new to this world, logic told him that allies should not be dispersed so easily.

His body, quite beyond his control, was becoming alarmingly warm with sexual excitement. The night sky, awash with stars and Migration Shields, began seething and pulsating in a harmonic frenzy, as if everything in the universe fluctuated synchronously with Elena's magic and his own hormones.