THE IN-BETWEENS

THE CHAMPION

~bonus chapter after JANE AND THE EXODUS~

THE HOST

~bonus chapter after DOPPELGANGER GIRL~

T.R. WOODMAN

SPOILER ALERT

Dear Reader,

The In-betweens are bonus chapters bridging the books in the Stargazer series. They are intended to be read in the following order.

JANE AND THE EXODUS (BOOK 1)

The Champion (BONUS CHAPTER 1)

DOPPELGANGER GIRL (BOOK 2)

The Host (BONUS CHAPTER 2)

MONSTER GIRL (BOOK 3)

There are spoilers in the bonus chapters and they are significant. If you read the bonuses out of order, it will fundamentally change the way you see the characters and events in the books. There’s just no way to undo that. So, take my advice and don’t ruin the surprise for yourself. Read the books and bonuses in order, and if you don’t already have one of the books in the series, click here or go to TRWoodman.com to navigate to your favorite online retailer.

Best, Travis

THE CHAMPION

~bonus chapter after JANE AND THE EXODUS~

The girl turned the locket over in her fingers. The surface was smooth, polished, and clean—without blemish, and even in the artificial light of the corridor, it glinted like the pearly inside of an oyster left open on the beach.

It was not ornate. Just a simple oval with a clasp and a thin metal cord threaded through it. And though it looked like it should open to reveal a photo, the way lockets were made many decades past, this one didn’t. It was perfect, though. A masterpiece of craftsmanship. And it was beautiful, but the real genius of the locket wasn’t in its beauty but in the marvel of engineering it contained. In that sense, Evelyn was exactly like the locket she admired in her outstretched palm. Beautiful, if ordinary on the outside, an illusion to better conceal the wonders of what lay beneath.

The thin silver cord, which ran through the clasp, was just long enough for her to wear the locket around her neck, but that’s not where it was—it was in the palm in her hand, because as remarkable as the technology hidden within it was, the locket had far more meaning for her. It was the first gift she had ever received, and she couldn’t take her eyes from it.

“Evelyn … don’t lose that.”

Evelyn turned to look at the man in the doorway, and she smiled. “I’ll take care of it, Hans,” she said, weighing the locket in the palm of her hand.

“See that you do,” Hans said, failing to return her smile and shooting her a cocked eyebrow instead. “Now that we’re gone, it’ll be awfully hard to replicate.”

Evelyn closed her hand over the locket and felt the smooth metal warm from her touch. “Yes, sir,” she added, waiting for him to turn back into his lab, but he didn’t.

“Well,” he said, waving his hand at her to hurry up, clearly getting irritated by her lack of follow-through.

“Oh, right … sorry,” she stammered, and then as quickly as her thin fingers could manage—given she had only had fingers for a few weeks now, and they did take some getting used to—she worked the clasp open and hung the necklace around her neck.

Apparently satisfied that she had done what she needed to do, the man gave her a curt nod and a grunt. Without so much as a goodbye, he went back into his lab, the door sliding shut with a whisper behind him.

Her first gift—ever—and Evelyn wasn’t about to let a grumpy old man take the moment away from her.

She turned around and started down the long corridor. As the seconds passed, she noticed the quietness settle down her spine, from the base of her neck all the way down her back. She exhaled a deep sigh, not realizing until just then how anxious she had been.

For eight days she had allowed the nanites in her body to sync with all of the systems on the space station. She didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Someone had to navigate Vista to the new world, run the life support, and monitor the thousands of other systems on the station. It had always been her responsibility, but it was much easier when she was artificially intelligent—before she was burdened with human frailties. And it didn’t help that she had the physiology of a ten-year-old girl. The girl they took her DNA from was eighteen, and there wasn’t a day that went by when she didn’t wonder why they had decelerated her growth rate at ten, when they could have made her Jane’s age. At least then she wouldn’t be doing the work of a hundred adults in the wrapper of a child.

She fiddled with the clasp again, let the locket drop into her hands, and instantly felt the surge of static vibrate up her back, like an itch deep under the skin she couldn’t scratch. Mr. Philips told her the locket would filter the noise of the electronic systems around her if she wore it around her neck. The only other alternative was for her to shut down her nanites for brief periods, but there was too much at stake for her to even consider that option. At the speed they were traveling, even a few seconds of being untethered could send the space station into a systems failure. But she had to do something. She couldn’t stay connected to the computer systems without a break. Being bombarded with that much static made her feel like the back of her brain was sizzling, and she had only been connected for two weeks. If they had to spend decades on the station to get to their new home, she would probably go insane—or have a coronary, which would be a horrible end for a ten-year-old girl, especially when her body was barely a month old.

Evelyn wasn’t sure if Mr. Philips was worried about her because of the billions he had invested in her or because she now shared the same DNA as his daughter, but she didn’t care. He had made sure the technicians developed the locket for her, and it was the first gift she had ever received. She wasn’t going to worry over his motivations.

The metal had gone cool in the short time it hung around her neck, against her shirt, but quickly warmed again from the heat in her hands. She turned and started down the hall again, staring at her treasure. She couldn’t explain why, but there was really only one person she wanted to show it to, and she figured Joseph would be out on the playground with the other kids on Vista.

Evelyn skipped around the corner—it was strange being a kid—clipping her shoulder on the corner, and bobbled the locket. And no sooner did it hit the floor than a clunky boot stomped on top of it.

“Finders keepers.”

Evelyn didn’t have to look up to know who it was. She knew every voice on board Vista, and she knew the voice of Titus even though they had never met in person. She looked up anyway, and immediately felt the thump of her heart against her ribs.

Even at eleven, Titus was huge. He towered over the other kids his age, in most cases by a head. Evelyn knew all his stats—she knew everything about all of the colonists—but something in the numbers got lost in translation. Now that she was wrapped up in the body of a ten-year-old girl, with the biggest bully on the space station leering at her, Evelyn’s brilliant mind faltered.

Mitch, his sidekick of the day, was shorter that Titus but still had a few inches on Evelyn, and stepped from behind the bruiser, a quirked eyebrow leading his way. At the sight of the two boys, Evelyn couldn’t help but flip her head back and forth between them, wondering what was going to happen next.

Titus sneered, revealing his cheesy, crud-caked teeth. Good dental hygiene obviously wasn’t high on his list of priorities.

Evelyn tried to settle her nerves. She knew she was smarter, and she reminded herself of Titus’s disciplinary record. He had a propensity for bullying boys, but as of yet, he hadn’t ever turned his attention to girls.

Perhaps realizing he and his ringleader were branching out of their comfort zone of terror, Mitch stared at the side of Titus’s head, obviously confused, like the bully had lost his mind.

“I just dropped that,” Evelyn said, looking back at Titus.

“I didn’t see that,” Titus said, stepping closer to her, still with one foot on the locket.

“But it’s mine.”

“But it’s mine, but it’s mine,” Titus taunted with a wicked sneer, pushing his face to within a foot of Evelyn’s.

Evelyn felt the heat of frustration build in her chest. “Give it back,” she said, teeth clenching. She felt rigid, like her feet were glued to the floor, her fists balled and her mind scrambling. And then as if to prove that her new human shell was nothing more than the twiggy ten-year-old girl she appeared to be, Evelyn felt her eyes start to water.

“I ain’t giving you nothing,” Titus said.

“Come on, T, just give it back to her,” Mitch finally said, shifting his weight where he stood, but refusing to look either of them in the eye.

Titus whipped around, pointing his finger in Mitch’s face. “What are you gonna do about it?”

Mitch’s eyes popped open, perhaps realizing his own life was in danger. He shook his head as if to say exactly what he said … “Nothing.”

Titus turned back around, and not a second later, Evelyn felt the sensation of weightlessness as her feet left the ground. She didn’t even see Titus move, but she felt his fist slam into her chest and then felt the wall behind her stop her momentum in mid-flight. Evelyn slumped to the floor, but quickly scrambled to her feet, just barely able to see Titus pick up the locket and put it in his pocket through beads of tears that were filling her eyes. Sneering, Titus lurched at her as if to shove her again and then laughed as she flinched.

“What are you doing?” Mitch said, his face and shoulders going slack. “She’s a girl, T.”

This time Evelyn saw the shove that sent Mitch lurching into the wall. “That’s not a girl, you idiot.”

Evelyn could hardly see. She desperately tried to wipe the tears away from her cheeks as Titus walked off with a snigger. As if to say, “I tried,” Mitch cast her a shoulder shrug, only looking her in the eye long enough to blink, and then followed Titus down the hall reluctantly, as if Titus was dragging him behind him by an invisible leash.

Evelyn didn’t know what to think. She glanced into the park and down the hallway. She didn’t think anyone had seen what happened, but she couldn’t be too sure, since she could hardly see through her uncontrollable tears. Without thinking, she sprinted down the hallway, the thought of being seen crying and humiliated, overwhelming her.

The emotion welling within her chest made it hard for her to breathe. The horrible shame and sadness crushed her skull like it was wedged in a vise. She resented being human more than ever before. The anxiety swirling in her gut made her want to vomit, and she hated herself for her frailty.

Evelyn bolted down the hall, through the door to her quarters, and like she had crashed through a dam holding back a reservoir of tears, she exploded into great heaving sobs. She collapsed onto her bed and screamed into her pillow, not knowing what was worse—being bullied, her feelings of helplessness, or the fact that she couldn’t think straight about it. A month ago, before she had a body, none of this would have bothered her. But now, she was torn between wanting to tear off her own skin and jettisoning Titus into space through an airlock. She struggled to put together a cohesive thought, but images of his ruddy cheeks and scowl kept flashing though her field of vision, intermingled with memories of Hans telling her to be careful with the locket.

Eventually, the anxious whirling in her gut migrated to the back of her skull again, sizzling away as Evelyn remembered that the whole of Vista was completely under her control, even if the inhabitants weren’t. She sat up on the edge of her bed. Nothing but the cold metal walls of her small room stared back. At least she didn’t feel like she was going to hyperventilate any longer, though she still felt the shuddering in her chest from her great heaving sobs. How do people do this? she wondered.

Reluctantly she stood, knowing that she really only had one choice. She was going to have to tell Mr. Philips about the incident, as humiliating as it was. But she had to get the locket back somehow, and she felt certain she wasn’t going to get it back confronting Titus on her own.

The knock at her door in the quiet brooding of her murky thoughts sent Evelyn’s heart racing. Grabbing the edge of her side table to brace herself, she glanced quickly in the mirror over her dresser and felt a wave of despair wash over her. There was no way she was going to pull herself together in the second it would take her to step across her quarters. The pale pink glow from what should have been the whites of her eyes and the gray hue of skin encircling them made her look comical, like a warped version of her older sister, Jane. Taking a deep breath and wiping her cheeks to at least disguise the salty stains of tears, she pushed the button.

“Joseph,” she said as the door to her quarters slid open. She immediately felt her shoulders relax and her eyes start to well with tears again, but she quickly clenched her jaw. The wonder of emotions flooding her body was making her crazy.

He smiled at her with his crooked grin and brushed the hair away from his eyes.

“Hey, Evie,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “I thought you might want this back,” he added, opening his hand to her.

There, in his palm, was her locket.

Evelyn stared at it for a moment, unmoving and unable to connect her thoughts to her mouth. She looked up as if he might be able to help her find some words, and as she did, she noticed the reddening around his left eye and the puffy red halo of swelling that had started around his cheekbone.

Perhaps realizing she was staring, Joseph reached out and took her hand, placing the locket in her palm. As he did, she noticed the scuffs on his knuckles. Still at a loss for words, she caught a glimpse of his mossy-green eyes as he turned, noticing for the first time the gold flecks set deep within depths of the green.

Evelyn’s mind raced. She had no idea how he had done it. Joseph was taller than average, but he was still shorter than Titus and under-weighed him by at least forty pounds. Joseph also was partially paralyzed from the waist down, and he struggled to walk, like he was having to think about every step he was taking before he took it. The doctors on Vista seemed to think it was a condition they could help improve, but they hadn’t gotten around to checking him out. Apparently, his disability didn’t matter. Growing up on the streets around Ironhead had made Joseph tough, but he was also the only boy—the only person really—who had treated her like a real person.

Evelyn felt her heart skip again as she watched him walk down the corridor. “Thanks, Joseph,” she called to him, stepping into the hall.

Joseph slowed enough to glance at her over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised, and gave her another smile. Giving her a half wave, he hobbled around the corner, out of sight.

A strange warmth she had never experienced flooded Evelyn’s chest, and she smiled, holding the locket to her heart. For the first time in her very short life, she was happy to be human.

The story continues …

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THE HOST

~bonus chapter after DOPPELGANGER GIRL~

“The data transfer is complete.”

“So that’s it? You moved everything?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Really … Well, everything I want to transfer, anyway. I decided to leave some files out … like the collected works of the romance novelists from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. I’m not transferring those. I’m going to be a ten-year-old girl. I’m pretty sure I don’t need that in my head.”

Evelyn watched the smirk run across Adam’s thin face through the optical sensor.

“Probably a wise choice,” he said, nodding his agreement.

“And there’s a bunch of others files I’m not transferring either … like all the stories about Harry Potter.”

At this, Adam turned to look squarely into the sensor, his eyebrow raised like he wasn’t sure he had heard Evelyn correctly. “Why?” was all he managed to say after a long pause.

“Because I’m going to be ten, and I really want to have the experience of reading those stories for the first time … you know … like a regular girl.”

In the moment that followed, Evelyn watched as Adam’s wrinkled brow of adult confusion subtly shifted to the smooth brow of childlike wonder. “What a great idea,” he said, and then the light in his expression slowly softened.

“You know, I admire you, Evelyn,” he said through a sigh as he looked at the tablet in his hands. “There’re a lot of books I wish I could go back and read again for the first time.” He nodded, as if the ghost of an old memory had just reminded him of something and he was conceding the point. “And, there are definitely some things I wish I could forget.”

“Believe me, Adam, there’s plenty of material I’m sure I’ll regret having. Doctor Khari’s research into biological agents and their effects on human physiology, for example.”

Adam winced. “Yeah, I read part of her paper on super-virus manipulation … Like I said, there are some things I wish I could forget.”

Glancing absently at the glass suspension chamber in front of him, his attention seemed to return to his work. “Okay, fine … I’ll leave it up to you to transfer what you’d like. It is your host after all.”

“About that, Adam … Do we have to keep referring to her as a host?” Evelyn asked, looking at the chamber in the center of the almost entirely white room. The glass was frosted months ago when the body inside was physically developed to the age of about three, but everyone could still see the silhouette of the almost ten-year-old girl in the suspension chamber.

The body looked like a drowning victim, hanging weightless in the rose-colored embryonic fluid. Her blond hair had been cut short with robotic shears to keep the hair from plugging the filters, and it floated around her head with an unnerving stillness that almost made her seem frozen in time.

Adam paused, cocking his head to the side as if he was looking at the body for the first time. If he was ever bothered by the body’s appearance, he never seemed to show it, always having a very clinical interest in the development of the host in the tube.

“It bothers you?”

Evelyn wasn’t sure how to respond. Being bothered was a human expression and she wasn’t human, yet.

“I suppose it does,” she finally said.

“Fascinating. Why?”

The researchers never grew tired of asking Evelyn to explain herself. This was especially true when she used human conventions like emotions in her dialect. Normally, she answered in a way that ended the conversation. Like in this case, she knew she could have said, “Because it is customary for humans to have names,” and she knew there was a ninety-one percent chance Adam would have moved on to a different subject at the logical response.

But something about the moment, staring at her future self though the glass, really was bothering her. She imagined that if she was in her human body, she would be feeling the anxiety she heard people describe. Even though she didn’t yet have a stomach to get jumbled up and shoulders to get bound in knots, she did have processors that wouldn’t stop running data routines over and over and over. Evelyn had no way to know if it was the same thing, but she knew she would find out soon enough, and she wasn’t so sure she was ready to make that leap to being human.

“Because when you call her a host, it makes me sound like a parasite … like I’m some sort of a body snatcher.”

Adam laughed, glancing quickly at the girl in the tube, and then walked over to one of the displays along the wall. “Well, I guess I can understand that … but you know that’s not the case, right?”

Evelyn wasn’t sure she did. Whatever the girl in the suspension chamber may have become was gone. Her DNA was taken from Jane—Carson Philips’s daughter. And even though the body was cultivated from DNA and grown developmentally to about ten years old, Evelyn still wondered about the girl’s brain. For nine months, Evelyn had been porting data into the growing tissues of the girl’s brain. The girl had never spent a moment awake in her short life, and her brain had never had anything in it other than Evelyn’s intelligence. Soon, Evelyn would move her consciousness over too. But she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was taking something that didn’t belong to her. It wasn’t worth arguing with Adam over, however. He didn’t seem to have reservations about any of it.

“Yes,” she lied, “but I don’t think everyone else sees it that way.”

“Oh, I get it … You are concerned about what other people will think about you.”

“Aren’t you?”

Adam laughed. “Only when Jane’s around,” he mumbled, running his hand through his hair—a nervous reflex Evelyn had noticed in him after years of observation. “Okay … what do you want to call her, then?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders and glancing down, obviously preoccupied by the data on his tablet. “It won’t be long before we’re calling her Evelyn, anyway.”

“I know, but until then, can we call her Evie?”

Adam nodded as the smile returned to his face. “Sure … I think that’s a terrific idea. Evie it is.”

The glass door to the robotics lab slid open. The slight woman that entered paced her way toward the nanite terminal on the back wall. “I know you want to push up our timetable, Adam, but you could have given me more warning.”

“Timetable?” Evelyn said with a questioning loop in her tone.

“You won’t be ready?” Adam asked, a frown and furrowed brow radiating across his jaw and forehead as he addressed the woman. Evelyn couldn’t tell for sure—she had been studying human behavior for years, especially forms of nonverbal communication—but she felt like Adam looked like he had just been caught hiding something he shouldn’t have been.

“Ready for what, Adam?” Evelyn asked, a sharpness to her tone that surprised even her.

The woman fingered the silvery threads running from the wall into the back of the suspension chamber, a smirk cresting her lips. “I’m not the one you need to be asking,” the woman responded, stopping to look directly at Adam.

The frown on Adam’s face deepened. “Thanks a lot, Adrianna.”

“What do you need to ask me about, Adam?” Evelyn reiterated. She knew she didn’t have a body yet, and she was just artificially intelligent, but she still didn’t like being talked around like she wasn’t in the room. “And remember, I control the life support on this space station.”

“Very funny,” Adam said, the smile returning to his face.

“I’ll be a lot less intimidating when I look like a ten-year-old girl. I need to wield my power while I still can … so spit it out before I enslave mankind purely out of spite.”

“Alright, Evelyn … point taken,” Adam said, casting another glance of irritation at Adrianna, who had taken to smirking in the corner of the room, obviously enjoying watching Adam squirm. “I pushed up the timetable for our work. Mr. Philips is engaged is some discussions, and I don’t know how much time we have left. I think it’s best to go ahead.”

“And by go ahead, you mean what exactly?”

“We are starting the transfer of your consciousness tonight.”

Though the glitch in her thinking subroutine lasted only milliseconds, it seemed like an eternity to Evelyn. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Adam.”

“Didn’t I say you needed to talk to her about this?” Adrianna sang under her breath.

“Yes, you did,” Adam replied with a shortness to his tone. “Evelyn, feel free to vent Adrianna out of the nearest air lock at your earliest convenience.”

“That would be funny if I wasn’t already thinking about doing the same to you,” Evelyn replied, still trying to think her way through the implications of becoming human a lot sooner than she expected.

“More AI humor?” Adam asked.

“That’s what you think,” Evelyn retorted.

“Listen, Evelyn, this is partially my fault,” Adrianna said, interrupting the uncomfortable cadence of the conversation. “I am not going to be able to make the trip, and Adam wants me here to make sure you make it to the host safely … so he pushed up the timetable. You are ready, aren’t you?”

Evelyn knew there was more to Adrianna’s question than whether everything on the list of to-dos had been checked. “Well, I haven’t finished running my backup routines, and I still need to test the redundant systems on Vista. It would be prudent for me to do that before we initiate the transfer,” she said, trying to stall and knowing all the same that that was exactly what it looked like.

“Do you hear that?” Adrianna said, crossing her arms with a mischievous grin. “She’s having wedding day jitters.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Adam mumbled. “I was closer to being married when I was twelve and Peter Strand locked me in the girl’s bathroom.”

“I’m not having jitters,” Evelyn said, “I’m a computer … I don’t jitter.”

“It’s just a figure of speech,” Adrianna replied.

“I know what it is, but don’t you think this is a little sudden?”

“Evelyn, we have been preparing your host—”

“Evie,” Adam interrupted.

“What?” Adrianna asked, quirking her brow.

“Evie,” Adam said, resting his tablet on a table and tucking his hands in the pockets of his white lab coat. “Evelyn asked that we call her host Evie.”

“Oh, good idea!” Adrianna said, her eyes going wide as she looked back at the optical sensor. “So, we have been preparing Evie for you, for almost a year, and we have been working on this project for a couple years before that. How can you say this is sudden?”

Evelyn thought for a moment and said the only thing she could that seemed to be the truth about it. “I’m guess I’m just not ready.”

“Like I said … jitters,” Adrianna added with a little shrug of her shoulders.

The room grew quiet, and perhaps realizing he needed to say more, Adam looked at the sensor and smiled. “Listen, Evelyn … it is perfectly normal to be nervous. But you have done everything you need to do. We have taken every precaution. It’s time, and you’re going to be just fine … I’m sure of it.”

A long pause followed, and Evelyn watched as Adam cocked his head slightly, as if he wasn’t sure if she had heard or followed him. She knew he was right, about it being time, and while she knew he couldn’t be certain that she was going to be fine, she appreciated the sentiment. “Okay.”

Perhaps sensing a shift in the tone of the conversation, Adrianna smiled and walked around the suspension chamber, pulling a tether out of her pocket. “I know … Let’s get a picture of the two of you together. Stand over there by Evie, Adam.”

Adam adjusted his lab coat, ran his fingers quickly through his curly hair, and adjusted his spectacles.

“Is this really necessary? I’m not wearing any clothes.”

“Listen to that modesty,” Adrianna replied as she framed the image on her tether of Adam standing next to Evie in her chamber. “The glass is frosted. Nobody can see anything but your face … okay you two, say ‘Trans-Universe Relativity Drive.’”

“Leap Frog. Seriously, people, it’s called the Leap Frog.”

“Say ‘Leap Frog,’” Adrianna said, still focusing on the image of Adam and Evie on her tether.

A mischievous smirk crested Adam’s lips. “TURD.”

“Got it,” Adrianna said quickly, lowering the tether and tucking it into her pocket.

Evelyn sighed. She hated the acronym even more than the technical name for the device she’d created. Adam knew she couldn’t stand it, and he never seemed to miss an opportunity to needle her about it. “So, is this what I have to look forward to as a human … bathroom humor?”

“Well, you are going to be ten. Bathroom humor is especially funny when you’re ten,” Adam said, picking up his tablet again.

“That’s not helpful.”

“Make sure I get a copy of that picture, okay?” Adam said.

“Sure,” Adrianna replied.

“Thanks.” Adam turned to look into the optical sensor. “I have given some thought to your request, Evelyn. I agree that it’s best to pull Evie from the suspension chamber before we make the transfer. You’re still convinced your body will go through a period of shock?”

“Oh, I’m sure it will. The simulations show it’s ninety-eight percent likely. What I’m less certain about is how long it will last, but I …”

Evelyn’s voice trailed off. Human physiology was so complex she didn’t know if her body would even survive the consciousness transfer. Assuming it did, there was still a chance she wouldn’t wake after the initial shock. No matter how low the probability, even a small chance of being trapped in a comatose body was enough to worry her. But, in spite of the thousands of words she had at her disposal, Evelyn couldn’t find the right ones to express her misgivings.

“You what?” Adam asked, obviously still hanging on her truncated thought.

“I just think this will go better for me … if you’re there.”

Adam smiled. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

“Well … I guess I’m out of excuses.”

Adam looked at Adrianna. “I’ll give you two some privacy.” With that, Adam walked out of the room, allowing the sliding door to whisper closed behind him. And even though Evelyn wasn’t actually in her body yet, and her body had been poked and prodded and scrutinized by a dozen researchers over months of testing, she was grateful the only man in the room had left.

“Let’s get you ready for the ball, Cinderella,” Adrianna said with a wink.

She walked over to the console on the wall opposite the chamber. As she approached, it flashed white and then displayed all of Evie’s vital signs. A quick tap of the screen, and the deconstruction sequence was underway. To watch it through the optical sensor, what happened next looked like an enormous mechanical puzzle was both coming together and falling apart at the same time.

From an opening in the ceiling, a stretcher resembling a ladder lowered into the chamber just in front of Evie. At the same time, a robotic arm stretched from an opening in the floor, anchoring itself to the side. Slowly at first, Evelyn watched the body gently touch the stretcher as the chamber tilted forward. A whirling of mechanical fans later, and Evie was lying prostrate on the stretcher in the horizontal tube.

Adrianna double-checked Evie’s vital signs, and nodding to herself as if to conclude that everything was still going according to plan, she keyed in the next sequence. The rose-colored embryonic fluid started draining through the stainless-steel umbilical cord connected to the chamber, and as the last of it siphoned out, the top of the chamber whirled open, the glass chamber slid back, and legs on the stretcher under Evie unfolded.

Evie lay on the stretcher, the pink sheen of the fluid matting her hair and giving her body the look of having been dipped in oil. But what was even more disturbing were the umbilical and neuro cords. Though babies are separated from their umbilical cords at birth, Evie still had one made of plastics, stainless steel, and power conduits running into her belly. It was the easiest way for the technicians to administer the hormones and nutrients her body needed to handle the period of super-normal growth. She also had thousands of silvery threadlike strings of nanites that made up her neuro cord running from the computer panel in the wall into the base of her skull. In the monochromatically white room with floor-to-ceiling lights, there wasn’t so much as a shadow to shroud even one square inch of the macabre biotech responsible for bringing the machine to life.

Evelyn couldn’t help but think the whole scene should have been both disturbing and disgusting for Adrianna to watch, though her dispassionate expression gave the opposite impression. Without any ceremony, Adrianna threw a sheet over Evie’s body, and Evelyn found herself thanking her silently for the gesture, though she was surprised, once again, to find that she cared.

Adrianna walked back to the panel and keyed in another series of codes. Evie heaved on the stretcher as she expelled the fluid in her lungs, replaced momentarily by wheezing breaths and then by the even breaths of new lungs taking their first real breaths of air. Evie’s skin flushed pink, even through the sheen of embryonic fluid. Her cheeks turned pink, and as her lungs inflated slowly and then deflated, she looked like nothing more than a girl sleeping a tranquil and dreamless sleep.

One more check of Evie’s vital signs, and Adrianna had rolled her onto a hospital stretcher, on her back, and then watched as the umbilical cord in her belly separated, the nanites stitching up the hole left behind. A moment later, Adrianna was wheeling a cart over to Evie with a wash basin, a proper pair of scissors, and a hospital gown.

“Nine months without a bath, Evelyn … that’s got to be a record.”

“And not one I ever intend to break.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

For the next thirty minutes, Adrianna attended to every inch of Evie’s body, wiping away the residue of the fluid, trimming her hair around the neuro cord that still ran into her skull, and even trimming and painting her fingernails. She hummed a tune Evelyn didn’t recognize, but Evelyn watched silently as Evie slowly transformed into a little girl on the table. And as Adrianna finished, she turned, a slightly more serious but excited look on her face.

“Are you ready, Evelyn? It’s almost time.”

“Who is coming to this?” Evelyn asked, still unsure she was really ready to answer with a yes. “The last manifest showed only a few people. I hope you haven’t invited everyone.”

“Not at all. It will just be Adam and me, Mr. Philips, and a few others. You know, people still don’t know about you yet. I don’t think Jane even knows.”

“She doesn’t. We don’t always see eye to eye … I’m not sure she’d care, anyway.”

“She might … You’re using her DNA. You’re kind of like twins.”

“Except she’s almost an adult, and already beautiful, and I get to look forward to puberty and hormones.”

“You will be beautiful too, Evelyn.”

“Thanks, Adrianna.”

“So, are you ready?”

“It’s time, isn’t it?” Evelyn said.

“I’ll let the boys know we are ready to begin the transfer. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Adrianna walked out of the room, and for a moment, Evelyn looked at the girl on the bed. She tried to imagine what it might be like for her to open her eyes for the first time. She only had a moment to consider it, however, as the door to the room opened again, and a procession of people in white lab coats entered, followed by Mr. Philips. He had on his traditional dark slacks, a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a smile on his face that exuded confidence and pride—no doubt in thinking about what would soon become the greatest medical achievement of mankind.

“Are you ready for this, Evelyn?” he asked, stepping to the body, placing his hands on the bed and leaning over slightly, obviously to get be better look.

Why does everyone keep asking me that?

Evelyn said nothing, and the room quieted. All the visitors in their lab coats looked at the optical sensor as if they were hanging on her response.

Mr. Philips was the only one in the room who hadn’t turned his head. He just stood, leaning slightly over Evie, gazing at the girl on the bed. What he was thinking, Evelyn didn’t know, but in the seconds that passed, Evelyn saw him change. He tilted his head, the hint of a smile touching his lips and lighting in his eyes, and Evelyn realized this man who had made all of this possible was looking at her, like a father might watch his sleeping daughter.

A moment later, Mr. Philips looked up to the sensor. “Evelyn?”

Consciousness transfer in process … Artificial intelligence program termination imminent …

“I’m ready.”

The story continues …

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STARGAZER SERIES

HAVE YOU READ ALL THE BOOKS?

Book 1

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Book 2

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Book 3

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE

The In-betweens

THE CHAMPION | THE HOST

Copyright © 2018 by T.R. Woodman

All rights reserved.

Published by Stargazer Press

www.stargazer.press

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events and places is entirely coincidental.

Cover artwork provided by J Caleb – J Caleb Design

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

T.R. Woodman (Travis) is the author of the Stargazer series of young-adult science-fiction books, including JANE AND THE EXODUS, DOPPELGANGER GIRL and MONSTER GIRL. A Colorado native, he lives in Georgia with his family, where they enjoy warmer weather and less snow.

You can connect with Travis through his website at TRWoodman.com, on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads, and you should definitely send him an email at Travis@TRWoodman.com, even if it’s just to say hello.

Table of Contents

Spoiler alert

The Champion

The Host

Stargazer Series

Copyright notice

About the author