“What if I told you the Big Bang was an event driven by a conscious purpose. What if I said the physical universe is an illusion … that it was created as an arena to test the soul.”

“Test the soul?” I glanced at Dharma. “Do you have any clue what he’s talking about?”

“Reincarnation,” she whispered, as if mesmerized by his words. “Each of us must earn Nirvana.”

McEntyre placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “I know you want to know everything right away. Before we go on, however, it’s important that you rest.”

Lisa opened the suite door. “Everything you can possibly want or desire can be accessed from these accommodations. There is a food replicator, baths, showers, privacy areas, exercise equipment, a therapeutic pool, and a king-size bed that will be far more comfortable than anything the land squids had to offer.”

She kissed us on the cheeks and we entered the suite. Our eyes widened in amazement.

It was everything the female had promised and more, a four-thousand-square-foot palace, each chamber dominated by plush furnishings and floor to ceiling views of the lunar landscape, the bedroom closets containing a dozen outfits that seemed tailor-made.

I feasted on turkey and stuffing, Dharma preferring Eastern delicacies, the two of us agreeing on a double dessert order of chocolate mousse. We bathed together in a hot tub, made love on that magnificent bed, then curled together beneath a goose-down comforter and fell fast asleep.

Home, sweet home …

Chapter 40

40

When the answer is simple, God is speaking.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

I awoke, restless and disoriented from a dreamless sleep. With no daylight or evening to reference, just endless space, I had lost all concept of time—an unnerving feeling in my dimension.

I dressed, then headed for the exercise chamber, leaving Dharma sleeping in the bedroom. Climbing onto a stationary bike, I started to pedal. For six minutes I pushed myself hard, driving my heart rate up to 165 beats per minute as registered on the machine’s built-in pulse monitor.

I stopped pedaling, coming to an abrupt stop. “This feels wrong. It feels empty.”

RUNNING LEVEL-FOUR DIAGNOSTIC.

“ABE!”

RECALCULATING EISENBRAUN VITALS. A MAJOR DISCREPANCY EXISTS BETWEEN SENSORY INPUT AND BIOLOGICAL VITAL SIGNS.

Elaborate.

EISENBRAUN SENSES REPORT A PULSE RATE OF 122 BEATS PER MINUTE. ABE INTERNAL PULSE RATE REGISTERS EISENBRAUN’S HEART RATE AT 14 BEATS PER MINUTE. OTHER DISCREPANCIES INCLUDE BODY TEMPERATURE, OXYGEN VOLUME, BLOOD PRESSURE.

Fourteen beats a minute? How is that possible?

ANALYSIS OF RED BLOOD CELLS INDICATES THE PRESENCE OF A FOREIGN SUBSTANCE. CLASSIFICATION: ANESTHETIC.

Son of a bitch! ABE, isolate Eisenbraun sensory input.

SENSORY INPUT IS ORIGINATING FROM A FOREIGN CONDUIT FEEDING ELECTRICAL SIGNALS DIRECTLY INTO EISENBRAUN’S FRONTAL LOBE.

ABE, block those signals, then initiate an adrenaline spike powerful enough to wake me up!

WARNING: OVERLOAD COULD RESULT IN SEIZURE.

Do it!

*   *   *

Sound crackled crisply in my ear. Followed by a breath tainted with an acidic hospital taste.