Holly: Part three of the Lisa, Jody, and Holly trilogy

damages.

One

I teleported home, it was either that or fly, and why spend time flying when you can get from A to B more or less instantaneously. It was about then I realised that another major change in my life had overtaken me.

I’m Holly by the way. I’ve taken over the writing of this saga from Jody, not because she was making a mess of it, on the contrary, reading the stuff she wrote was quite interesting, but more because she wanted to spend a little more time with Mike.

I hesitate to call Mike Jody’s boyfriend, perhaps she’ll thump me for saying it like that at all, but from where Lisa and I stand, that’s what Mike seems to be.

Jody added a little background to her chronicle so perhaps I should do the same. Lisa, Jody and I are three teenage girls. I nearly said ‘ordinary’ teenage girls, but that would have been a bit of a fib. All three of us have extremely well developed ESP powers, we can levitate ourselves - flying sounds much better - and move things by telekinesis and teleportation. We can also speak to each other directly mind to mind - telepathy. We have several other powers which will probably become apparent as this diary unfolds, but one of our most recent, and possibly most powerful, is that we’ve discovered how to merge ourselves together into one girl, who we’ve decided to call Angel. Angel has just discovered how we can use our powers to teleport ourselves as well as objects. That’s how I’m able to teleport home from Lisa’s. Neat or what! And that’s the major change in my life I mentioned earlier. Up ‘til now, that’s the one thing we’d not been able to do - at least not without being so stressed our eyeballs would nearly pop out.

I used my new skill at teleporting to scout for a clear spot at home to appear in, There was nobody in the kitchen, so that’s where I appeared.

Mum, Dad, only me. I’m back.

Mum came running into the kitchen. Jean rang. She said you’d gone to Selafield to stop it blowing up. Jean is Lisa’s mum and what she’d told my mum was essentially correct.

Lisa had a Precog. Well, Angel had it really. We teleported over to Selafield.

Did you manage to fix it? asked Dad, following Mum into the kitchen.

Yep. There’s still a plant there instead of a radioactive hole in the ground.

Is Lisa ok? asked Mum. Only the last Precog hit her a bit hard.

The Precogs are visions of the future, premonitions if you like. Lisa has them rather than Jody or me, probably because she’s our Director. I’m only our Scientist and Jody is our Engineer. Probably too down-to-earth for complicated stuff like Precogs.

Well, now we know what they are, we can cope with them a bit better. We merged to Angel and shared it, all three of us saw what Lisa did. She’s fine, no problem.

As I spoke to Mum and Dad, I was aware in my head of Jody telling her parents more or less exactly the same thing, the three of us were so linked together that it took a deliberate effort of will to exclude one or both of the others.

Jungle tom-toms have been beating while we were in Cumbria, ‘said’ Lisa in my head.

What? You mean our parents have been ringing each other up? ‘said’ Jody.

I ‘laughed’. Have to get them wires between each house so they don’t need to go through the phone system. Might be cheaper.

Shame they can’t do it like this, Lisa ‘laughed’ with me.

Err - Lisa? ‘said’ Jody, Do we need to go and tell Beth about the latest stuff?

Beth is the head scientist at the lab that looks after our affairs - and incidentally spends many thousands of pounds trying to find out exactly how we do what we do.

Suppose so. Will you arrange it, Holly?

Yep. When d’you want to go?

Tomorrow, after school?

Jody?

Fine by me. Should we fly there - or just - appear?

Good question, ‘said’ Lisa.

I vote we fly this time, I ‘said’. "After we’ve told them what we’ve found we can do, then we can just turn up in the middle of a roomful of people."

Good point, ‘said’ Lisa. This is now official Angels policy.

Ok. I’m on it, I ‘said’.

Withdrawing slightly from the link, I ‘called’ Victor. Victor is a labtech at the lab, and is my - significant other.

Victor? You there?

Holly! Are you ok?

"Never better. Why? You’re worried, aren’t you?"

I got scattered thoughts and impressions while you were off this afternoon. It sounded dangerous!

Pooh. Walk in the park. Selafield is still there, the Angels fixed everything.

Still ... He pulled himself together a bit. How did you know about it? How did you get there?

Ok, ok. Listen up. Lisa had a Precog. The three of us went over to Cumbria, sorted stuff out, and came straight back. We need to tell Beth. Tomorrow afternoon. After school. Will you be around?

Yeah, I’ll be here. Usual arrangement?

Mm. Cafeteria on Red Alert. Will you arrange it? Please?

Ah, the magic word. ‘Course I will, you know I will.

Thanks Vic. You’re a star. I ‘sent’ him a picture of a Holly giving a Victor a big kiss. Reward time later. Homework to do now.

I ‘heard’ him ‘laugh’ gently as we both got on with whatever we needed to do.

Ah. You’re back, said Dad.

Sorry Dad. Difficult to carry on two conversations at once. Is it really obvious?

You have a sort of puzzled expression while you’re off talking to the others.

I laughed. "Lisa’s mum calls it a ‘vacant expression’. At least I only look puzzled. Need to go and sort out homework. Was going to do it during the day but Lisa and other stuff got in the way a bit."

All right dear, said Mum. I’ll do you a snack for supper in a little while.

I jumped up and gave Mum a kiss, then I gave Dad one too in case he felt left out. Then I headed for my bedroom and the homework I needed to do. Got to keep up, exams were looming on the horizon.

Lisa and Jody were still there, in my head, as I got on with stuff. It’s like a telephone that’s still connected but put down on the table. The line is active but nobody’s speaking. We’d all three got used to this, it took a great effort to ignore it, but that didn’t mean we chattered away all the time. It can be useful though. Like now.

Jody?

Mm? What Holly?

I need an example of using an electrical circuit to generate a spark. Any thoughts?

A couple. Surprised you can’t think of any for yourself, you’re our boffin after all. Anyway, a spark plug in a car engine? Name is a bit of a giveaway. Generate a spark and explode the petrol and air mixture. That drives the piston and stuff and makes the engine go. Need another one?

Got one handy?

Err, what about one of those things you use to light your gas cooker? Makes a click and a spark, doesn’t need batteries.

Of course! A piezo-electric gizmo. Thump a bit of special crystal and it generates a whopping electrical voltage. That’s what the click is, something inside it hitting the chunk of crystal. I’d forgotten all about that one, thanks Jody.

You’re welcome. Told you you’d know all about it if you thought about it.

Quiet reigned again for a bit. It was getting on for bedtime anyway. What it was also getting on for was suppertime. Since meeting Lisa and Jody and getting ‘zapped’ to increase my mental powers, I never seemed to have stopped eating. The mental stuff takes energy, energy comes from food. The three of us were always eating, hence the cafeteria to Red Alert for our visit to the lab tomorrow.

Despite prodigious food intake, all three of us still had figures models would die for. We didn’t seem to get any bigger, except in the ways that girls like us should get bigger.

With supper scoffed, I retired to bed. With what I’d thought about earlier in mind, I surveyed myself in the mirror before I climbed into my jim-jams. ‘Not going to be mistaken for a boy anymore in dim light, Holly Merrick’, I told myself. In fact, such things were proceeding nicely, thank you very much. I had half an idea what I might finally look like in a couple or three years, thanks largely to Jody’s shared dream world where I appeared rather older than I actually am. If I did actually look like that, I’d be well pleased.

Maybe it was thinking about stuff like Jodyworld or maybe it was just a coincidence, but I seemed to be asleep for only a second or so before I woke up again.

Two

I wasn’t in my bed, or in my house, or even on the same planet! This was my dream world, we’d dubbed Hollyworld. If that were the case, then I was standing on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

I looked around with interest. I’d only been here once before. I wasn’t surprised when Lisa just appeared and a moment or two later Jody popped up as well. The crew around us paid no attention at all to three girls just appearing in the middle of them.

Hello Holly, grinned Lisa. What are you going to have us do this time?

I don’t know, I said. I’ve not planned anything, only been here a couple of seconds myself.

Seems a bit quiet at the moment, said Jody.

Hang on, hang on, I said. Let it get going.

Just then, one of the crew members sitting at the front control desk turned and addressed Lisa. Entering Rift Seventeen, Captain. The anomaly is directly ahead.

Instantly Lisa engaged Director mode - or should that be Captain mode - whatever. On screen. Slow to one third impulse. Holly, you’re our Science Officer. Scan please.

The huge screen in front of us lit up with a field of stars. Immediately in front, in the middle, was a patch with no stars at all, presumably the Rift. It wasn’t empty, however, there was a sort of glowing cloud-thing in there. As I watched, it seemed to pulse gently, as if it were alive. We were approaching it slowly.

I went to the nearest panel with nobody manning it. This might as well be the Science Station, nobody seemed surprised when I went and fiddled with it. None of the ‘instruments’ told me anything I could interpret, but I knew the thing in front of us was dangerous.

Recommend we stop here Captain, and conduct further scans.

All stop, said Captain Lisa. Reduce impulse power to station-keeping only. Let me know what you find Holly.

It’s about half a million miles in front of us Captain, I said. I fiddled with buttons and stuff. I’m reading organic life signs. Not localised, the whole thing seems to be alive.

I wasn’t ‘reading’ anything at all, I just knew that if I could actually read the ‘instruments’, that’s what they’d be telling me. Just as good I suppose.

Then one of the men sitting at the front desk, the helm, said, Captain, distance to the anomaly is decreasing. We’re moving towards it.

Continue station-keeping, said Lisa.

Not possible Captain. We’re being draw towards it.

Reverse impulse. Pull back from it, said Lisa.

The chap on the helm played with his buttons. The whole ship shuddered slightly.

Distance is still reducing Captain.

Reverse engines. Full impulse power.

Aye-aye Captain. The ship shuddered rather more this time.

I looked at my panel. "Captain, there’s a dense spot in the centre of the anomaly. Very small but very dense. Must be a black hole. That’s what’s pulling us in."

Still moving towards the anomaly Captain, said Helm.

Jody, you’re the Chief Engineer, can we pull away?

I had the fleeting thought of Jody speaking in a fake Scottish accent. She didn’t bother, it just came out as normal Jody. We’re at full impulse now. Warp engines won’t function this close to a black hole. I’d say we should try to turn away.

Ok. Helm? Hard over, full impulse forwards on my mark. Mark!

That worked about as well as I’d expected. We turned sideways alright, but simply got closer to whatever it was pulling us in.

Reverse thrust, full impulse, Turn us towards the thing again, shouted Lisa.

Helm did things with his panel and we turned to face the thing in space in front of us again.

That worked well, said Lisa. Any other ideas Jody?

Holly? How sure are you it’s a black hole in the middle? asked Jody.

"Pretty sure. There’s a massive gravity gradient in there."

Could we disrupt it with phasers or a photon torpedo? asked Lisa.

Can’t do that anyway, I said. The cloud around it is alive. Doing that’d probably kill it. Need to find another way."

Suggestions?

I had one. No idea where it came from, but that didn’t matter. Jody? Will the warp engines thrust us forwards if we engage them?

Of course, there was no way she was actually going to know that, but it didn’t really matter, whatever we did would work really. That’s how Jodyworld and Hollyworld function.

Yes, but not for more than a few seconds.

That’ll do. If we fire them at the correct time, we’ll bounce off the event horizon of the black hole like a stone skipping along the surface of a pond.

And if we don’t fire them at the correct time? asked Lisa.

Then Blooey - we wake up at home with Game Over flashing behind our eyes.

Can’t have that, grinned Lisa. Jody, get the warp engines on-line. Holly, work out the time and angles and all that stuff.

Jody went off to play with another panel, while I looked at my Science Station. Ok. I reeled off a load of incomprehensible stuff to the man on the helm. He just nodded and played arpeggios on his panel.

Cut impulse engines Captain, I said. Do you mind if I control the timing of the warp engine burst?

You have the con, said Lisa.

I watched my displays. Although I had no idea what they were telling me, I knew I’d know when to shout. What was worrying me though was just how close we were getting. We were inside the cloud.

When you’re ready Holly, said Lisa, slightly nervously I thought.

Jody didn’t make it any better when she spoke up, Captain Lisa, I’m getting readings of differential gravitational fields throughout the length of the ship.

In English please, said Lisa.

Gravity is pulling harder at the front of the ship than it is at the back. If it gets much worse, it’ll pull us apart.

And now the poor ship was shuddering and groaning as we moved through the cloud around us. But I knew the time wasn’t quite yet. I was getting anxious looks from the crew, including Lisa and Jody.

Ok. Get ready. I’d recommend holding onto something. Ahead warp seven - NOW!

Helm stabbed down on his panel and several things happened at once. The ship shot forwards, the cloud around us turned to streaks in the huge screen in front of me, and the whole ship made a ‘bong’ noise, like the sound of an enormous bell.

For just a fraction of a second my head felt so light I’d have said it was floating, while at the same time, my feet felt as heavy as lead. My vision turned black and white, and then everything went to a grey nothingness, like fog. Within less than a second the feeling passed and things were back to normal. The screen in front of us showed stars again.

Lisa recovered quickly. Holly, scan astern. Are we clear of that cloud, whatever it was?

I pushed a button at random. The screen changed to show what was presumably behind us. That turned out to be the cloud we’d just gone through, receding from us quite quickly, although it was us moving away from it really.

Good, said Lisa. Jody? What was that bell-sound?

"I think it was the ship actually hitting the black hole. Holly cut it a bit fine."

Worked though, didn’t it? I said, putting on a slightly hurt tone.

Never said it didn’t.

Ok, you two, said Lisa. At least we coped with whatever it was all about instead of just getting Holly to change things so we didn’t need to.

Where would be the fun in that? said Jody.

Hm. I’m not sure I like Hollyworld, I said.

Why not? said Lisa. "It’s in your head after all."

Yes but consider, in Jodyworld we have super powers, we’re totally invulnerable, we can’t be hurt, witness the atom bomb Jody dropped on us. Here - well - I just don’t know. What would have happened to us if we’d been killed here?

Lisa had the answer. You have a greater survival instinct than that. I think if you were faced with being killed, you’d change the story so you weren’t. I further think you’d change the story if any of the three of us was in danger. So don’t worry. Mind you, I like having super powers. Shame we don’t know how we get here.

The crew had totally ignored us during that exchange of words, they continued to ignore us when we came together for a hug and a kiss. That was my cue to wake up.

There was light peeping in through the cracks in the curtains, so it was probably almost time to get up anyway. Lisa and Jody weren’t quite - and then they were.

Hi guys, I ‘said’. All back safe and sound?

Seem to be, said Lisa. Wonder why your world is full of danger and excitement Holly?"

That’s easy, said Jody. Be boring otherwise. Imagine just cruising along, stars passing by to either side. Like I said - boring.

I was about to answer in my defence - when the alarm went off. Got to get up for school.

Three

At school I generally kept myself to myself. I have no particular friends, but then, I have no particular enemies either. This suits me fine as I prefer learning to participating in all the stuff the other girls seemed to get up to all the time. They keep trying to draw me into their intrigues and schemes - most of which seem to involve boys - or clothes. I have nothing against the latter, but as for the former, I prefer Victor to any of the available boys we habitually associate with.

At home time I was supposed to fly to the lab to meet Lisa and Jody. I had a plan. Without telling the others, I scouted for a nice empty space at the back of the lab building that I was fairly sure wouldn’t be overlooked. When I was happy, I simply teleported myself there. Much better than flying, which is interesting in a school uniform carrying a large bag.

Now the other bit of the master plan came into play. I was a few minutes early. Time to hunt up Victor and try for a snog.

Victor? Where are you?

Hello Holly, you’re early. In the cafeteria.

Ok. Be there in a second or two.

I hurried in through the front door, nodding at the guard on the front desk as I went. He just nodded back, thoroughly used the three Angels coming and going at all hours. At the moment there was only one Angel - me.

In the cafeteria, I spotted Victor at once. There weren’t many people around so I took my chance and kissed him soundly. That my feet required to be several centimetres off the floor to achieve this is of no consequence whatever. The few people around just smiled at us, but poor old Victor went quite red.

Holly! he ‘said’.

You’d better get used to it Victor, I ‘said’. I intend to keep you around for quite a while.

While I’d been kissing Victor, I’d been thinking. Jody and Mike could manage to link together in a similar way to the more-or-less permanent link between the three of us girls. Could Victor do that as well?

While I still had hold of his hand and we were still in telepathic contact, I deepened the contact further until it was more like the link we girls shared. It seemed to be working, I could sense Victor’s emotional state quite well. He seemed to be - worried - about something.

What’s wrong Victor? I ‘asked’ him. What are you worried about?

He jumped as if I’d stuck a pin in him. "How’d’you know I’m worried about anything?"

Because I can feel your emotions, silly. Here, let yourself feel mine. I let my feelings of respect and admiration flow out over the link, what I got back surprised me, although I suppose I should have realised. The feeling I got back was love!

"Is that what you’re worried about? You’re worried because you love me?"

Well, yes. You’re still so young.

And you’re an old man with one foot in the grave already?

But ...

"Victor, only be worried if you feel me dragging you into a bedroom. I know that’s the problem."

"But what if I drag you into a bedroom?"

Oh-ho. The heart of the matter already. Several things, one of which you’ll find out about in the meeting this afternoon. Another is that it takes both of us. As long as one of us resists the dragging we’ll be fine. But the third thing is quite important. Now you’ve discovered we can link, you’ll find the bedroom bit isn’t nearly as important as you think it is.

Link?

"Yes. Like us girls, like Jody and Mike, like this." I let the link between us strengthen until we were almost one person. That one person had no secrets from each of its parts.

"But - you love me."

Did you ever doubt it, silly Victor?

Yes! No! I didn’t know.

And now you do. A statement, not a question. Still worried?

No. Not anymore. Got lots of things to discuss and sort out.

And lots of time to do it in. Now behave, the others are here.

Holly? Where’re you hiding?

Cafeteria Lisa. Victor? Where are we meeting?

Oops. Victor had been dragged into the link.

Hello Victor, ‘said’ Lisa. I see you two are getting on fine.

Victor was ‘speechless’. I dug him in the ribs with my elbow. Come on Victor. It’s rude to stare.

Is this what it’s always like for you three?

Yep, ‘grinned’ Jody. Better get used to it if Holly’s zapped you again.

Better show him how to keep stuff secret, ‘laughed’ Lisa. "Oh, don’t panic Victor. Mike is the same. Hey, here’s a thought. Jody? Call Mike. Let’s see if he and Victor can hear