Part 9
You focus on the slim, dark skinned hand and reach out your own to meet it. Only now do you realise that your hand is wavering and insubstantial like the ghost Elizabeth was speaking of moments or millennia earlier.
[Reach out to me, Jay. Focus on my hand.] Elizabeth urges.
The first time your palms touch, yours passes through hers and the sensation distracts you, taking away your focus. You marvel in the feeling studying your own hand as if you've never seen it before.
[Jay!]
Of course, Elizabeth. Again you reach out to her and this time you put all your will into making contact, all you desire is to feel the touch of that smooth palm against your own and take the pain away from the glowing creature in front of you. Your hand makes contact and for the first time in who knows how long you feel a physical sensation bursting into your mind with as much impact as any of the new senses you're still struggling to assimilate. The sensation runs up through your arm in a wave, bringing solidity with it and after a few moments you shiver, feeling the convulsion passing through every nerve in your body.
Elizabeth pulls you into a tight embrace of relief. It takes you several long moments to remember who you are and begin to squirm free. Before you can, Elizabeth slips a broad belt around you waist and secures it with a large buckle.
[Jaunt us in, TIM.] You hear her say softly.
After the simultaneous sensory deprivation and overload of hyperspace the actinic white light of fluorescent tubes makes you groan and clap your hands over your eyes. Gentle hands support you, help you to a nearby seat.
"He's very weak." A rich voice, TIM's voice, announces seemingly from all around.
"He's safely in the Lab now, TIM." John's voice answers, tight with relief. "That's all that matters." His voice softens. "Liz, are you alright? You were in hyperspace a very long time."
You open your eyes, looking up to see your rescuers for the first time. John is a tall young man, in his early twenties, his dark hair framing a well defined face from which brown eyes peer anxiously down. In his arms is Elizabeth, a pretty black woman of around the same age. Both are wearing grey jumpsuits of some kind, their blue piping bright in the white light of the Lab. They both look tired as if they've been searching for a long time.
"I'll be fine, John." Elizabeth assures him, trying to control the shaking in her voice. "It was just seeing Jay like that. We so nearly lost him."
"But we didn't, Liz." John reminds her, gently. He looks up at the two younger people in the room. "And are you two alright?" He asks.
"We're okay." The brown haired boy with a Scottish lilt to his voice is perhaps a couple of years younger than you are and he speaks both for himself and for the tall and beautiful oriental girl by his side. "You didn't have to send us back to the Lab early, John. Hsui Tai and I could have searched a bit longer. We weren't that tired."
"Hyperspace is a dangerous place, Andrew." John tells him firmly. "Even with the environment suits on you were in danger of drifting off if you became too tired and I mean that literally. The pair of you were much safer here. Liz and I have more experience of hyperspace than you do."
"Don't remind me." Liz agreed with a shudder.
"Hey, Jay." Your eyes are drawn towards the last two people in the room. Ginge and Chris are standing by the door with a third man and all three are looking worried. Chris tough looks particularly apologetic and it is he who has spoken. "I just want to say sorry, okay? That wasn't how things were meant to go."
"I'll say not!" John exclaims, sinking into own of the room's strangely shaped chairs with a sigh. "I just thought they might persuade you to come here, Jay, not scare you into jaunting without a belt!"
"I did my best!" Chris protests.
You don't answer. You still feel shaken and now the fear is returning, the realisation of how close you came to death in hyperspace and how serious your situation has become. You look around at the Lab. It's large and airy, its walls alternately white and awash with swirling colour. Hanging above all are the pipes and spheres that you recognise as the source of TIM's distinctive voice. The four Tomorrow People stand in their secret base like kings in their castles and each one glows with a distinctive energy that, still lacking mental shields, you are unable to ignore. John notices you looking around.
"Welcome to the Lab, Jay." He says quietly
"Thank you, I think." You say uncertainly. "But I still don't understand."
"We've got a lot to explain." Elizabeth tells you ruefully. She hesitates and reaches down to unstrap the belt from around your waist. Instead she pulls our a second belt, this one identical to the ones that you now realise that not only Elizabeth herself but also John, Andrew and Hsui Tai are wearing. She holds it out to you. "We had to use a matter transporter to get you back here but you'll never need one of those again. This is your jaunting belt."
You pause before accepting her gift, only now aware of how easily you had been accepting everything you'd been told. Elizabeth saved your life, yes, but without her and her friends would it ever have been in danger? You're not sure. Suddenly you are aware once more of the barriers in each of the minds around you, hiding their true intentions from you. You look around the Lab, a secret base in the heart of London and instinctive trust wars with intellectual suspicion inside you.
And now, before you commit to anything even as simple as this you realise you've got a decision to make. Do you hold onto your caution, listening to the training of your life, or release it, as you released your mind not long ago, and accept the new life that the simple act of taking a belt has so bizarrely come to represent?
Do you:
a) Remain suspicious?
b) Abandon your suspicion?
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