Read Ashlyn Chronicles 1: 2287 A.D. for Free Online

to listen to your heart. The moment you arrived here, you began a journey. That journey will end in either your salvation, or your destruction. Steven, to survive, you must let the longing that you feel inside your heart guide you.
    “Perhaps this will help you to understand. I wish to share with you the story of Pandora’s Box. It is one of the few Greek stories with a—”—a smug smile tilted the doctor’s lips—“happy ending.” He looked fully like a cat who had caught a mouse.
    “In Greek mythology, Pandora was a woman created by the gods. At the command of Zeus, each god gave her a seductive gift. The meaning of these gifts is open to varied interpretations, but I base my story upon the most recent find, the Thermopylae texts discovered in 2242 by James Carstairs. He believed that rather than Pandora being the embodiment of evil, as was widely accepted, she was the embodiment of perfection, goodness, and hope. Physically, the gods endowed her to be supremely feminine and sensually seductive. They enhanced her mental perfection by stripping her of human frailties such as greed, vanity, and jealousy—replacing them with a spirited and uninhibited boldness. That boldness often leaves little room for what we consider simple concepts. Concepts like modesty as example.” Tynabo gave a mischievous smile. “She was the Great Goddess, who took the form of a mortal woman—a woman of such great beauty that when she first appeared to both gods and men, they were seized in wonderment.”
    Steven swallowed and noticed that he had a lump in his throat.
    “According to the texts, when Pandora returns, she will rise from the earth, her hands raised above her head in epiphany, and that she would be the giver of gifts unto men.”
    The doctor stopped briefly, looking deep in thought. “As for the box itself? It represents both a prison and a salvation. So, call it what you will—legend, prophecy, fanciful story telling. In the end, the results of seeing fulfillment realized are the same.”
    “Is he saying what I think he is?” said Cole.
    Steven’s adrenaline surged. His excitement was uncontainable. The sea of emotions again welled up inside him. The doctor’s words had inspired a teenage angst that wrested control from him.
    “In the room below, in stasis, is your genetically engineered mate, D’na—as I fondly call her. Her given name is Ashlyn Parker. She is quite literally in every respect like Pandora. She is superlatively perfect.” The doctor hesitated, giving Steven a moment for all of it to sink in.
    “I’ll be damned. They did! They built you your own goddess,” quipped Cole.
    Steven swallowed. His mouth was dry, his stomach in knots.
    The doctor shifted his weight. “As pertains to you—while your heart may have already led you to this conclusion—yes, you, like Ashlyn, were created here in this facility. Both of you were created from bits and pieces of the most unique genes that humanity had to offer.”
    “Jesus Christ!” said Tomlinson. “You’re a beaker-baby!” Tomlinson’s remark carried the weight of Tynabo’s shocking revelation.
    Steven’s knees felt weak. His mind went numb.
    “Steven, I want you to know that the new sensations you are experiencing are normal and expected. Because of your close proximity to Ashlyn, the first of our sequenced genetic changes have already begun to take place inside you. It is what we call the fugue . Essentially, the fugue is a tool. It is similar to a tuning fork, insomuch as it is synchronizing both of your auras—your electrical fields—into one. Understand that together, the two of you are going to become much, much stronger than you are now. In essence, from this moment on you will be able to feed off the resonant energy field—the life force—of the other. But, it goes far beyond a mere doubling of the power from which you can draw your strength. It is actually altering you on a molecular level. While the quantum physics of our work is