The woman sensed nothing.

She had no sight. No sound. No hint of smell or other feelings, or any general awareness of being alive. It was like being under anesthesia. A dreamless state of nonexistence in which she was not present and accounted for in the universe. From nowhere, a sea of blackness engulfed her consciousness, and a low mechanical hum permeated the darkness. She floated down an empty tunnel toward a brilliant light, leaving the shadows behind. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the light surrounded her and encompassed her entire being. She couldn't explain what was happening, but a miraculous power flooded her soul with the pure essence of life.

She was alive, and she knew it.

An array of rainbow colors swirled around the outer edges of her vision and materialized into images. Memories. She watched the scene unfold like an out-of-body experience. Someone she knew—Phoenix—said something and smiled and then pulled a breathing mask over his face. With a speargun in his hand, he leaped from the boat and splashed into the sea, waves sloshing over his head as he disappeared from sight.

She donned her own dive mask, stepped off the edge of the gunwale and plunged beneath the surface. Her ears gurgled and her vision darkened to a greenish blue.

Phoenix swam, his fins swishing in the salty water.

Callisto, a friend, appeared from her peripheral vision, kicking toward the bottom. She remembered this day vividly. Like a scene from a TV show she had watched a thousand times, the events unfolding before her eyes.

They were swimming around a sunken fishing trawler. Phoenix and Callisto fired their spearguns and killed a large grouper. Normally, a catch like this would ramp up her excitement and make her happy, but she felt a raw fear creeping in around her instead.

Blood clouded the water, and a giant shadow passed over them. She didn't know why, but her heart spasmed like a marine engine, throwing a rod and seizing on dirty oil. For a moment, she thought her heart had stopped altogether, but then it started again with a tingling jolt.

A predator was in their midst. A great white shark.

The memory skipped ahead like someone erased a critical part, a traumatic event cleansed from her mind. 

They were swimming, chugging to the surface in a frantic wash of foam and froth. Out of the blue, something crashed into them, and the waves rolled around them.

The memory melted into a whiplash of blue, indigo, and red. Blood red. Then it all faded to a harsh black nothingness. The events had occurred. She had seen it and felt it because she lived it. Then it vanished, like it never happened, like an intense dream she had before waking but couldn't remember. Her heart pounded as her chest squeezed around it. She was short of breath and an electrical spark of pain raced through her extremities.

The terror and anxiety associated with the dreamlike memory dematerialized like the remnants of a ghost. Traces of what once was, but now wasn't. Gone. Lost in a matrix of short-circuiting synapses in her brain.

She gasped for air, her lungs coming to life with a sharp intake of oxygen.

That felt better. Much better. No terror. No anxiety. No pain. No sense of loss. No grief.

She remembered nothing.

Clean.

Pure.

Peaceful.

The humming sound intensified, and she noticed a sterile smell similar to a hospital.

Her eyes fluttered open.

Her reflection stared back at her from above... long dark hair draped over her shoulders... a smooth bronze complexion, and clear green irises.

Lying on her back, some sort of glass or other transparent material encased her body. A hospital gown covered her from her thighs up to her collarbone. She twisted and her skin pulled free from the sticky leather cushion beneath her. She didn't know why, but it reminded her of riding in a Jeep with the top off on a warm day.

Her mind seemed like a blank database, empty and void, except for a few random details that floated around her consciousness. She knew her name—Nova Kailani—and her military rank, lieutenant commander, and that she was a pilot in the Navy. It was as if someone had wiped all the minor day-to-day events from her life. Clean. Sanitized. She tried to recall how she got inside the glass box but couldn't come up with a reasonable answer. Maybe she got knocked out? She might have a concussion, but she didn't have any symptoms like headaches or blurry vision. And she didn't have any head wounds. None that she could feel or see in the glass's reflection.

Nova glanced down at her left side. An IV pierced her skin in the fold of her arm. Her hands went to the glass, fingers leaving prints on the inside. Her fingertips rubbed over the interior of the box, squeaking against the encasement.

A woman appeared at her side wearing a white lab coat with orange-red hair like autumn leaves spiraling past her shoulders. Effortlessly, the case glided across Nova's fingertips as the lid disappeared into the wall behind her. Everything around her felt crisp, clear, and white. The table she was on. The walls in the room. The countertops. The cabinets. The lab equipment: microscopes, test tubes, Petri dishes, and a complicated device with a computer attached to it labeled as a DNA sequencer.

Behind her, a large boxy machine hummed like a generator. It took up most of the back wall, connected to the table she was on with thick cables.

"Nova," the woman said with a welcoming smile. "It's so good to see you're awake. How are you feeling?"

Nova peered up at the woman in the lab coat. Her demeanor radiated a warmth that felt disarming. Who was this person? And how did she know her name? And why did it feel so natural to trust her at first sight? Nova tried to sit up, but her head spun, a wooziness settling over her.

Seeing her struggle, the woman helped her rise to a sitting position, and after a few moments, the dizziness subsided.

"Are you okay?" the woman asked. "How do you feel?"

"I'm fine," Nova replied. "I think."

"I'm Dr. Lawson. I'll be overseeing the next phase of your recovery. Can you stand?"

"I think so."

Nova eased her legs off the bed and slid her backside off the edge. Her feet touched the cold floor, the ball of her left foot sensing the chill a fraction more than her right. That was odd.

Out of necessity to stay balanced, she kept her weight on the side of the bed.

Dr. Lawson offered a hand and pulled Nova to a standing position. A little wobbly, but upright.

The doctor wrapped her other arm around Nova's waist. "Easy. You've been out for a while."

Nova's right foot and her right leg. It felt weird, slightly numb.

"I can see you're tentative about putting pressure on your new leg?" Dr. Lawson said. "That's normal. You'll get used to it in time."

"What do you mean by new leg?"

"Do you remember anything before the incident?" Dr. Lawson said, catching her gaze.

"What incident?"

"Just as I suspected. The procedure affected your short-term memory. What's the last thing you remember?"

Nova shrugged. "Graduating flight school?" She looked at Dr. Lawson, unsure. "Receiving orders to report to the Sea of Cortez. The U.S.S. Fortitude."

Dr. Lawson led her to a wheelchair and Nova dropped into it.

"The Border War with Mexico," Nova said, her voice more certain, peering up at Dr. Lawson. "We're at war. I have to go. I have orders."

She rose, but the doctor placed a hand on her shoulder. A firm hand.

As she fell back into the seat, the wheelchair moved forward through an automatic door.

"The war ended five years ago," Dr. Lawson said. "It lasted for three years. So, your last memory is eight years prior to the incident."

"What incident are you talking about? I don't remember."

"It's normal with the procedure. Reanimation can have certain side effects, in particular, short-term memory loss."

"What do you mean by reanimation?"

"I'll explain later."

They entered a wide-open area with a glass walled laboratory at its core. The inside of the facility rose several floors above them like a large medical complex with lots of stairs, balconies, and doors. The ceiling looked like concrete painted white.

Dr. Lawson said, "Do you remember Commander Phoenix Drake?"

"Should I?"

"That's a tough question to answer at the moment. It's complicated." Dr. Lawson smiled warmly. "The two of you will meet again when you wake up from cryo sleep."

"Cryo-what?" Nova frowned.

"You have a long journey ahead of you, but don't worry, it'll seem like no time at all."