FROM OUT OF MY DREAMS

TWENTY YEARS INTO THE FUTURE:

Alisha sits in her underground science lab doing some work. She seem to be coding a software in one of the computer systems in the lab. Standing close to her is a humanoid robot who is already functioning perfectly but with few modifications needed. The lab is a very sophisticated lab, very large and clean, painted in white and blue colors, the interior is well decorated with beautiful chairs, beautiful tables and living flowery plants, every machine in the lab seems futuristic and nothing like the world have ever seen. The lab is Alisha's secret lab and she has a name for it, she calls it 'Arkhaviya' meaning 'From out of my dreams'.

Alisha built the lab to commemorate her love ones, she missed them so much, she misses them all the time. She had to decide to live her life without them, without the warmness of their love, without their incomparable smiles, their smiles that were always bright like the sun. She missed her Mom, but not her Dad, she missed Kiya and her beautiful family. Matthew comes in time to time to visit her in the lab which also serve as her home. She sleeps there and do pretty much everything there. Save for her Dad, Alisha has no one else, no boyfriend, no girlfriend, no neighbors, just her and her alone and that is just the kind of life she chose for herself, A lonely but fruitful life.

Like any other coding and inventing day, Alisha sat on her computer making some modifications to the humanoid robot standing close to her. She would check on the robot in short intervals of time to see if her modifications are working. She had her ears blocked with ear buds listening to music, a habit she inherited from Matthew her father who while still alive on earth did nothing without ear buds in his ears. While she hums a song she is listening to, she suddenly felt uneasy, like the space behind her shifted. She quickly turned to see what was happening but saw nothing. That feeling was a familiar one for her, she watched for a few moment but nothing showed up so she concluded there was nothing and returned to her work. Few seconds later, a voice suddenly hammered into Alisha's ears, "Alisha!" the voice called. At the sound of that voice, Alisha's heart tripped and started beating three time the normal rate, her blood pressure seemed to rise from normal level to a higher level within split seconds, too fast she couldn't calm herself. She paused for a second, "What the hell was that?" she asked herself. "Am I suddenly sick?"

"Alisha!" the voice hammered again.

Without even thinking about it, Alisha's defence mechanism activated in light speed. Two sharp swords materialized in her hands, her outfit changed from lab wear to full battle suit and sophisticated eye glasses materialized over her eyes, it happened to fast for a normal human perception. She used her speed power to change her position too quick almost as if she teleported. Alisha charged in full force ready to split into uncountable pieces whatever it is that find it way into her lab through a portal. Amazingly, what Alisha saw shocked her to the very core of her being, her eyes widened in surprise and she shouted, "Mom?"

[Smiles] "Yes Alisha, it is I" Aliya calmly answered.

[Flabbergasted] "Where did you come from and how is this even possible?" Alisha asked.

[Aliya sighs] "I am from the far past, I came here to find you.. I need your help Alisha. I am dying."

"What do you mean dying?.. You already died."

[Aliya nodds in agreement] "Yes in the past maybe but that why I am here Alisha"

"To do what?" Alisha asked, for she's already lost by her mother's words.

Aliya sighs, she looked at her daughter in the eyes and sincerely replied, "To stop myself from dying."

[Alisha sighs] "What? How? By the way you don't look good at all"

[Aliya chuckles softly] "Yes because unlike you, my powers came with a side effect, the more I jumped through space the more my health deteriorated. Jumping through time makes it worse and I had to use the last strength I could foster to jump many years into the future just to find you. Only you can safe me Alisha, in this future, you are an absolute genius."

Alisha was rendered speechless by what her mother said. She walked slowly to her seat to relax a little, to perhaps think something. She knew her mother had powers, she also knew the cause of her mother's death so many years ago but what she never imagined is her mother stealing time to come into the future to safe herself. Alisha began to wonder in her mind if what her mother did perhaps created an alternate timeline, because she should have stay dead not alive jumping through time to keep herself alive. "If she could be saved, then what happens to the timeline that she died?" Alisha asked herself.

"I don't care what happens to the other timeline, what's at stake is far greater than just a timeline I assure you" Aliya spoke with a bitter heart.

[Startled] "Huh?.. What, you can read minds too?" Alisha quickly asked.

"Yes I can read minds too, the power I kept secret from you." Aliya replied rather nonchalantly.

She moved around Alisha's lab, admiring and touching some machines. She marveled at the inventions of her future daughter. Back from when she came from, Alisha is still a young lady trying to coup with schooling, her new founded powers and boyfriends girlfriends matters.

[Alisha sighs] "So how do you want me to help you Mom?"

Aliya didn't answer Alisha immediately, she walked up to her, close to where she sits to code. She stayed close to the robot Alisha was working on before she interrupted with her sudden appearance. She admired the robot for a while and decided to ask her daughter some question.

"You created this robot too right?"

"Just like any other thing here.. Yes." Alisha answered.

"Does this robot ever get sick?" Aliya asked.

"No it doesn't, it a machine" Alisha answered.

[Sighs in relieve] "That what I thought" Aliya said.

"What is your point?"

[Aliya chuckles] "My point is.. If we can figure a way to download my soul from my biological body and upload it into a body made of machines, then I may not die and my powers can then be handled properly. What do you think?"

Shocked by her mother's suggestion, Alisha paused for a second as if trying to process what she'd heard in her head. "I don't think that would work mom" she said. "Humans are not like machines that can just be downloaded and uploaded just like that."

"That is why I came all the way to find you Alisha. You have the ability to do this to me, you just don't know yet." Aliya insisted.

"It not like wouldn't want to do what you are suggesting but I don't think I understand this technology yet mom, it beyond my reach"

"How hard would that be?.. It is just like creating a robot and instead of uploading a software inside, you upload my soul. Isn't it that simple?"

"No Mom, it is not that simple"

"Why?"

"Because I can't.. Ok, I can't just create a machine and upload my mother inside, you'd be a monster and that not what I want please."

[Aliya sighs] "Oh so you can do it but just don't want to right?"

Alisha noticed that the tension between them was getting hotter, she decided not to talk back to her mother again, she calmed herself and spoke in a lower tone. "If we succeeded in doing this, what would you do?" "I will go back to my timeline and help you and Kiya the Melimandu of Ayrahku. Without my help Africa and her heart Ayrahku may perish."

[Alisha chuckles softly] "In the future we call the continent Alkebulan not Africa anymore, even Ayrahku is now called Irigwe pronounced e-ree-gway."

[Aliya scoffs] "Pff.. call them whatever you want no problem. Are you going to do this for me?"

[Alisha rolls her eyes] "Fine I will try but you need to be patient. The process might be a little hard and take a while."

Alisha began the work, day and night without getting any rest. She extracted Aliya's DNA samples to create memories and a replica of her Mom's face. She created a unique body ore using a unique type of flexible metal, mixed the ore with Aliya's blood and finally incubated the ore into an incubator. The whole process took Alisha two weeks and two days, while she was busy Aliya's sickness worsened.

Inside a glass incubator, a tiny body grows. At first it looks only like a pound of flesh, then it rapidly grew into a tiny head and tail and then limbs. Aliya admires the tiny body in the incubator, while Alisha does some check ups to be sure everything was working well with the incubator. She paused for a while and signs, she looked at her mom and said, "There.. It will take a little while but I promise you will love what you will get." Aliya smiled faintly and said, "Thank you Aliya. I knew I was right to come to you." Alisha chuckled softly and replied; "Alright, while we wait I need you to take care of yourself, try not to stress yourself, and try to take the drugs I made for you, we need you in full energy when this body grows up."

Few day later, [Voice echoes faintly] "Mom? Mom wake up!" Alisha calls her Mom. She looked closely at the beautiful full grown female bio-robotic body floating inside a large incubator. Her face look worried and desperate, she needed her mother to wake up. She hurriedly moved to a digital panel to press some buttons, her heart beats faster than normal because her mom seem not to be alright. "Mom wake up please!" she called out laud. The body didn't respond, it float still and quiet inside the incubator full of water. Alisha sobbed and said, "I told you this may not work but you insisted, now you want to die in my hands." Just when her hope began to completely fade away, she hard a movement in the incubator, hope began to rise in her again as she watches closely to confirm what she thought she heard. The body began to move this time more rapidly, then elegantly opened her eyes. Seeing this, Alisha zoomed in the speed of light to shut down the incubator and drain the water inside so that the new body she created could find it way out.

Thirty minutes later, fully naked in her new body, Aliya sat quietly on a nice bench in a garden just outside the lab. She would raise her head to look at the sky and to see the birds flying and hear them sing, she seem to be enjoying the nature around her. She felt alive yet cold, for no blood runs in her veins anymore, only circuits and chips. Alisha walked up to her with some piece of clothes for Aliya to put but surprisingly Aliya rejected the clothes. She only needed to close her eyes for a second and then SWOOSH... a beautiful white long gown materialized on her body.

[Alisha Smirks] "You amaze me.. So you won't need to spend any money on clothes again huh, hahaha cool."

[Aliya smiles] "Thank you so much Alisha. You gave me back my life."

"Well, it was about saving the Alkebulan and Irigwe right?.. I did it all for that and for the fact that I could save my mother from dying of cancer."

"Thank you Alisha."

"So you feeling good in there?" Alisha asked.

"Yes I am good except for the feelings. I barely feel anything, it like I am me but a different me." Aliya replied.

"Well you are right to think that way. Because the you of before is no longer, you are a new being entirely, but, your soul, consciousness and mind is still Aliya."

Aliya looks at her hands, everything seem totally new and different. She looks at Alisha and ask, "If Aliya is no longer then who am I?" Alisha smiled at her, she held Aliya's right hand and answered, "You are Arkhaviya." "Wow, sounds great, but what does it mean?" Aliya asked. "It mean 'From out of my dreams'.

"Thank you" Aliya replied; "from now on, my name is Arkhaviya."

[Alisha sighs] "Now an important question. What do we do with Aliya's body?"

[Arkhaviya chuckles] "I will take it with me to my timeline and drop it on the bed in my bedroom so that the Past Alisha will find the dead body and raise an alarm that Aliya died, in her sleep."

[Alisha laughs in amazement] "Wow! And then it will look like nothing actually tempered with the timeline and everything moves on smoothly without any time branch.. Wow Mom you are a genius."

[Calmly] "Call me Arkhaviya not mom and you are the genius not me."

"O-ok as you please" Alisha stammered.

Few days later Arkhaviya opened a portal in to her normal timeline, teleported into her bedroom and dropped her dead former body. After doing that, she opened another portal into the exact time when Alisha and Kiya were talking in Alisha's lodge. The portal opened like a fire ring, strong and powerful, with heavy light that could blind any human. When Arkhaviya noticed that her powerful aura was crushing Kiya and Alisha, she decided to withhold her aura which allowed the two ladies to be able to raise their heads to see clearly who this powerful being with imposing aura is. Their eye balls almost gushed themselves out of their skulls, their heart beats started racing like horses and while Alisha shouted, "Mom?" Kiya shouted, "Mrs. Aliya?"

The Powerful being looks at them with smiles and said, "My name is Arkhaviya."