Guarding Forever by Viola Grace

 
     
Guarding Forever
     
     
    Ohra entered the secure facility with caution. She paused at all security checkpoints and reported in for her first day at work.
    “Ohra Ianic?” A man with a clipboard checked her into the high-security section.
    “Yes.”
    “I have heard good things about you. Your scores were some of the highest we have seen.”
    She swallowed and nodded. “I do try.”
    “You have succeeded beyond all expectations.” He had the same shaved head that she did and wore a brilliant blue uniform.
    Ohra followed him past another checkpoint and stood for the body scan.
    The officer that was guiding her spoke. “You do understand that once you pass this door, you will not be let out for six months to a year?”
    She swallowed and answered. “I do understand that.”
    He beamed. “Good. Come with me and we will get you plugged in.”
    She followed him through the final set of doors and into the deepest secret that her people held.
    Two hundred Edinar had been saved from genocide and were being cured of a vicious plague. The healing process was slow, and the Edinar minds were unused to inaction. They need stimulation, and there was only one way to provide it. Volunteers had to go in and link to the Edinar directly on the astral plane while the doctors worked. One Edinar at a time was thawed and hooked in to a volunteer. Today was Ohra’s lucky day. She was about to enter the mind of a powerful psychic and live by their rules until it was finished healing.
    The prospect of being in someone else’s mental landscape was a little daunting, but Ohra had been training for this since she left secondary school. Losing her hair had been the least of her difficulties during training. Like many of her kind, she reacted to the IV fluids by losing body hair, but she had managed a one-month stint in a simulator without any other difficulty. It had been her final exam, and she had passed with flying colours. She was officially a monitor.
    A woman with short hair spiking out all over took over for the officer. “Welcome to the mind gate, Ohra. We have ten stations going right now, but station three is about to go vacant. I am Commander Losian. I was the one who picked you for this project.”
    “Thank you, Commander.”
    “Come along and you can see how it is done.”
    Losian walked with her and took her to an observation station. They watched the spoke of med units, head to head with their monitor. Station three was surrounded by medics, and the monitor was carefully released from the technological tethers before they turned their attention to the Edinar.
    “We sent a signal to the monitor, ordering him to uncouple from the Edinar and warn him of the upcoming waking. They should both be prepared for it now, though it may be a little odd adjusting to the waking world once again.”
    Ohra nodded and watched as the Edinar was woken and answered a few questions. He was taken away on a gurney.
    “Now, they go to physical therapy for a few weeks and we reset the station. That is where you will spend your time.”
    Ohra swallowed. “I understand. How long until the station is back up?”
    “One hour.”
    “Do you know who I am to be paired with?” She hoped for a nice schoolteacher or something. Someone that she could converse with in the long time they would spend together.
    “Yes, the commanding general of the Edinar defenses. If he had been in charge when the attacks came, there would have been many more survivors. You need to keep him distracted while we work. He might be strong enough to pull himself out of the coma. You have to stop him if he tries.”
    Ohra blinked rapidly. “I have to distract him? How?”
    “It is the astral plane. Do what you have to do.”
    Ohra blushed at the implication and ran her hand over her shaved scalp. “I don’t think that I am the most attractive thing that any man has ever seen.”
    “That doesn’t matter. Remember, he can read your mind if he tries, so speak the truth.