Chapter 19
I'd just like you to know that a warrant was nearly put out for your arrest.
Up to her breast in hot water and from there up covered in luxurious foam, Eva had been in a state of intense relaxation. Her brow crooked as she processed those words. "Uhm, what? Why?"
The authorities have received reports that you've set foot on the human colony of Mu.
"Fucking... you could have at least started with a 'hello', Melissa." Eva sat up. "Do you realize I was having a very nice bath, until you broke this news to me? I was feeling very good. And now this... what even is this? Mu? I've never been there. No one has for years."
Well according to them, you have.
"Well they're quite mistaken. And how would that even be grounds for an arrest, if I had?"
There are allegations of relations with a human girl.
Eva flopped back against the bathtub. She rubbed her eyes. "Noooo way."
Way. They have video footage and everything, which they brought to us and the Lemurians as well. And everyone who saw it said that it was the famous Eva Dennis, unmistakeably, shown with the human girl.
"To go to Mu, one of theirs. That's a serious crime. That is like the worst thing a goddess could do, at least according to them. And... and it sure as hell wasn't me."
I know. You don't even like humans, right? I said the warrant was 'nearly' put out. We told the cops you've never been to Mu, and everyone is corroborating this. Us, your people at your vineyard, we're all saying and proving that you'd never left Eva Australis for the period in question. In fact there is no evidence of any travel nexuses whatsoever heading there for years.
"Okay. So I'm not in trouble."
Right. The footage is an open case, but for now you're off the hook.
There was an uneasy pause.
Maybe you have an evil twin or an imitating impostor out there. It's weird.
"Could you show me this footage?" Fears that another scandal was about unfold to entered Eva's mind. "Has anyone seen it?"
No, I don't have it. I haven't seen it either. It's not available to the public. Only the cops have it.
"Ugh, really?" She sat back again in the tub. "I really need to see this. Oh, fine. Thanks and goodbye, Melissa."
***
Eva hated having to use her influence to get what she wished. She preferred to live as any other goddess in the city of Evita would, even though for her it was as one with great fame and an incredible amount of wealth at her disposal. Being the most famous person on the planet, a once mythical figure after whom the purple world had been named, definitely had its benefits. Being one of the daughters of the clever goddess who ruled that world's greatest nation did as well.
She preferred not to take advantage of those benefits, yet there were times when it had to be so. Days after receiving the strange news of sightings of herself doing forbidden things far North, she found herself sitting in a private projector room in Evita's police headquarters. The police chief himself was there with her, trying to get the primitive media system the humans of Mu had provided to interface with their projector.
He'd assured her that he and the rest of the police force believed her alibi, and they were on her side in finding out who or what seemed to be impersonating her in the video.
"There's some trick to getting the raw analog signal from this thing... Ah, I think this is it. Oh, this is so old fashioned."
She quietly traced her fingers around the edge of a hot cup of coffee as she watched and waited. The chief of police was on his knees, squinting at the gold tipped end of a cable which was attached to the provided media player. Cables, to move data? She hadn't seen that since her days on Earth! To watch him kneeling over the equipment as it sat on the floor was most unbecoming of a man of his rank. He eventually found where it plugged into another little box, a makeshift converter which would transmit the signal to their projector.
"Okay. There it is. And... and now here's our video." The chief stood up and slid his hands into his pockets, and he stood perfectly still, not betraying a single hint of discomfort at the scene unfolding before them.
The image was clear enough, and there was no mistaking what Eva saw. The goddess in the video had to be her. Every aspect of her body, her face, was the exact same. The only minor difference was her black hair lacked the purple streaks she liked to add to her own. Her shoulders tightened, and she tried not to show any embarrassment.
Stranger still was the girl beneath her. If she wasn't actually the goddess in that video, why did she feel like she recognized that girl? She'd seen her somewhere before. "Can you replay it? In fact, just put it on loop."
The police chief sighed, and his knees cracked as he got back down upon them to fiddle with the given device. "Of course, Eva. One moment..."
There was only a brief moment in the film where the girl's face was visible, but it was enough for Eva to be sure that she'd seen the girl somewhere else. Somewhere... unreal.
She'd seen that girl, been with her in fact, on more than one occasion. Those occasions had been her own dreams. And in those dreams, she wasn't ever Eva. She was... someone who looked exactly like her, but was named Gaia. Gaia apparently had a thing for human girls, which Eva in her waking life did not. "A-leh...
Alessia
," she whispered.
It was all incredibly bizarre and there was nothing the police chief would be able to do to explain it.
"Can I have a copy of this?"
"I'm afraid not," he said. "That'd go against our policies. And we wouldn't want to risk the footage getting loose, to reach the public, you see..."
"Okay, that's fine. I've probably seen enough anyway. Thank you for sharing this with me."
"Of course. Anything you want, just ask us. We're at your service."
Eva nodded and stood up. She took a final sip from her cup, set it down and then left the police chief's office.
Seeing her leave, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Chapter 20
Far to the north a man sat in another office with two of his colleagues, a woman and an older gentleman, at the other side of his desk. He sipped his cup of coffee as he flicked away a window in his tablet, then opened up his next document.
"Now on to the subject of this young girl we've been monitoring. Hardly the type we normally keep around here. What did you say her issue was?"
"Prolonged exposure to a goddess, sir," Alessia's behavioural counselor said. She passed her own tablet to the head psychiatrist, who leaned forward in his chair to squint down at her report.
"Thank you Pam. Hmm. That is a serious issue... in fact I'm quite shocked we're still having this problem in Mu. And after two weeks you're reporting improvement with her, this Alessia Greco?"
"That's right. Other than the fact that well, being kept here for the past two weeks has affected her mood, I didn't detect any anomalies in her behaviour."
"You deem her fit to return to her little town, out by the fringe?"
"I do," the counselor said. She'd grown to like Alessia, that pretty young thing. She was very friendly, and terribly smart. It was a shame that she had to suffer confinement with the rest of Mu's mentally unstable.
"Exposure to the goddesses can be a complicated affair, though. The changes that take place within a young lady are not merely behavioural, they actually take place on a cellular level." The head psychiatrist turned to the other gentleman who, due to the size of the psychiatrist's tiny office, sat elbow to elbow with the counselor. "So I must ask then... Dr. Kissinger, what do you have to report on this patient?"
He cleared his throat and sat forward. "Ahm, yes. As you said, it isn't merely as simple as how she behaves. With all due respect Pam, what she hides from you, ah, she can't hide from my equipment."
"Oh? Tell me more."
"We've seen some pronounced hormonal imbalances. It's really a textbook indication of a body in an advanced stage of breeding. She's undergoing a growth spurt, one more intense than the one she in her normal state would have had during first puberty. She is chronically aroused and in a state of sexual heat."
"So she's definitely had a lot of exposure to the rogue goddess."