Ninth Millennium Navigator

30

Katrina was smiling.

Even with her face on the verge of showing bruises and with Matthias still pinning her naked form to the ground beneath his own naked form.

He had been so close to engaging in passion with her.

Now he only felt raw anger and hatred.

"Matthias, you said it yourself. He was evil."

A tear fell from Matthias's eye. It landed upon Katrina's chin.

She continued with renewed vigor. "He was evil. You KNOW that. I did nothing wrong. There is no difference between what I did and many other things."

He thought she had been staring into him, but she seemed to engage even deeper with his eyes. "I don't think YOU can condemn me."

Matthias leaned back and fell against the wall. Without moving from her position on the floor, she began to explain with a growing sense of pride. "I kept track of where his lome was, so I decided to finally go." One of Matthias's minds notice she was using the same tone she used to recall countless experiences in sequences.

But those had been in sequences; this was real!

"Entering the lome was scary! I mean, what if he were out of his sequence?" Katrina said.

Matthias and Calissa sat in wrapped attention as with all her stories. The only difference was that Matthias was in a state of disbelief unlike any he even felt while she recounted her experiences.

This was real!

"Even worse, I could not sense his touse. You said as much. He could hide it, so he might have been there, and... Well, I entered and he was not there. Thank whatever higher being there is!"

A strong sense of banality was clearer than ever to Matthias as he watched her body language, listened to her words, and sensed her touse.

While Katrina never said as much, Matthias inferred Calissa's traumatic experience at this console had inspired Katrina. The incident provided the warped rationale Katrina needed for choosing her victim.

Calissa's experience had also given Katrina the means to extract her unwitting victim. 

"And so after I put the globe viewer in my eye—I was so scared he would catch me!—I saw him riding in some ancient vehicle next to some woman. It took me several of his sequence hours and long after they had walked into some structure, that he first noticed me."

"His companion was utterly confused like I was a ghost or something. He was not as caught off guard," she explained.

"'Who are you?' he yelled out to the ceiling," she explained with a deep voice for him. 

The rendering was chilling when Matthias thought that the man was dead somewhere, although she had not gotten to that part of her tale.

"I'm out her waiting for you, my dear," Katrina said to Matthias and Calissa, meeting both their eyes as she replayed what she told the man. 

She explained his frustration and confusion, but his eventual decision, at her constant proding, to exit his sequence.

"As you've explained, Matthias, I never sensed his touse during the entire process. I wasn't even convinced he was in the lome with me until I saw his figure step out of the chamber."

She's trying to convince me that this is the guy! She doesn't want any doubt.

Katrina's eyes wandered and a different smile formed on across her lips. "Oh! He was not happy about being pulled from his sequence, but he was still in a confused state. And how I took advantage of his weakness. Of course, it helps having assets as I do."