The Twainer's Cube

THE TWAINER'S CUBE

By

Imogen Sans

© copyright by Imogen Sans, Oct. 2007

Cover Art by Eliza Black, Oct. 2007

ISBN 978-1-60394-095-5

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author's imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

 Earth, 2113

Aw, man! Ariah cursed mentally, still fighting for control of her motor functions after the five-year hibernation cycle that had enabled the doctors to save her life but had complicated it at the same time. Fumbling with the zipper on her jumpsuit, she scowled silently at the fastening while she stood in the small bathroom stall at the start of the final hour of the workweek before she could clock out to go home and shower.

The years she'd spent in the hibernation pod at the clinic had thrown off more than her occasional battles with zippers or misjudged depth perception, which sent her walking into walls. In the five years she had slept while the doctors developed a way to override the affects of the poison which had leeched its way into her system during an attack on her company's home base in the Ju Vonice Quadrant, Ariah had life had continued around her. Friends had moved on, new worlds had joined the Federation, and her last living relative, Grandma Nan had died.

She was technically twenty-eight but still looked and felt like twenty three. Although she'd only slept five years, though, she might as well have been gone for five hundred with all she'd missed out on the planet as well as the Federation and with her loved ones. Only her long-time friend, Allison, had even still been around when she was brought out of the pod, cured but still weak and certainly disoriented. But now even Allison was moving on.

As an investigative journalist, Allison had finally been offered the big chance she'd been waiting for from her editor to look into a lead she'd gotten about an underground smuggling ring from the Gherban System, something about protected alien species. Now, in less than forty-eight hours, Allison would be off and away into the final frontier. Sighing sadly, Ariah re-buckled the belt around her hips and gave herself the once over to check for any signs of her infrequent bouts of unsteady hands. Once satisfied, she exited the sanitation stall and made her way to the sink to wash her hands.

"Oh, thank god it's Friday eh?" Moxy from accounting groaned at her as she freshened her garish makeup.

Ariah hummed in agreement, cringing internally at the cliché day of the week comment.

"Ariah isn't it?" Moxy asked, eyeing her through the reflection in the mirror as she paused before applying yet another application of lash enhancer with a cosmetic wand.

"Yes," Ariah replied with a subtle smile, "don't you work in accounting?"

With that, Moxy rolled her eyes and continued to thicken her lashes. "Boring as hell, I tell ya. I've never been one for numbers, I only applied for the job because I wanted to get out of the Customer Accounts Department, all the calls from Harron were such a pain in the ass. All they do is complain."

She knew all about that. Moxy, if the rumors were true, Miss I Hate Numbers, had screwed up the account of one of the biggest clients their innerworld scientific equipment supply company held and had cost the company a couple hundred thousand credits. Ariah had no idea why they hadn't fired her and promoted her to internal accounts instead, although with the view of the woman's firm ass hanging out of her faraphen skirt, she could have given a pretty good guess as to why the woman was still employed.

"So, got any exciting plans for the weekend?" Moxy cocked a finely penciled eyebrow at her as Ariah sanitized her hands under the particle stream.

"Yeah," she lied, trying her best at nonchalance, "going out to eat" ordering in, "then to a movie" in my living room on the twenty-inch panel projector. The non-verbal, internal monologue sounded just as pathetic in her head as if she'd actually said it all aloud.

"Any one I know?" Moxy smirked wolfishly as she turned around with a swish of her long sable hair to face Ariah, planting a curvy hip on the edge of the sink.

Umm, unless Chet Jarvis, incredibly hot star of three of my four favorite movies, is a close and personal friend of yours, then…no. "No," she replied, trying to keep as little lying out of the conversation as possible, "I don't even know him."

Phew, that was close!

Sympathy from the office slag was the last thing she needed right now. "Blind date, huh?" Moxy heaved a sigh, as though offering condolences to the family at a funeral of someone she hardly knew, her enhanced brows knitting in fraudulent pity.

"A what?"

Moxy took in Ariah's faded black, no-nonsense, three-quarter sleeves jumpsuit appraisingly before continuing. "Did someone set you up?"

"Yeah," the network's Friday night movie lineup, Ariah thought wryly, wishing for nothing more than that their conversation would be at an end.

"Well have a good time." Moxy smirked knowingly at her once more. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Ariah escaped the bathroom just as Moxy, began to laugh - whether with her or at her she had no idea but something told her it was the latter.

I wouldn't want the infections that go with it, Ariah scowled in unvoiced reply as she punched in the key code, and waited for the print scanner to register her so she could enter the back door of her department to finish out the remaining fifty minutes of the work week.

"Geeze," Carly, the receptionist, breathed as Ariah brushed by her in the back hall on the way to her small, window-less office, "what's the matter with you?"

"Oh nothing," Ariah lied with a sigh, this time with resigned evasion as she continued without pause to her workplace haven, "sorry Carly."

Upon reaching her desk, she noticed the light on her communicator blinking with irritating persistence. Picking up the headset, Ariah keyed in the command for her voicemail to retrieve the message.

After the usual automated date and time stamp, Allison's familiar voice crackled oddly through the receiver.

"Hey, it's me," the message began without formal introduction, "sorry this is such a crappy conn--tion bu ...." A large ripple of crackling interference faded her one remaining friend's voice for a few moments until fading back in as though someone had been messing with the volume. "... so I won't be able to go tomorrow obviously. I suck, I know, but you'll forgive me right? I'll be sure to send you something non-touristy, I know you're into that stuff. Well, I'm calling from the ship's communicator and I don't have a way for you to contact me yet but when I do, you'll be the first one I call - well, I guess the second after my editor…or my assistant, but rest assured you're in the top five of the people I'll call first when I finally can. This is so awesome! Love ya!"

Commanding the communicator to save the message for further deciphering, Ariah hung up slowly, staring at it as the blinking message light finally stopped. Oh well, she sighed, I guess that leaves Chet and me the entire weekend to ourselves.