The Jovian Legacy Read Online Free

had known her somewhere before, but knew it was highly unlikely,
telling himself he was probably only thinking about his mother. No
matter what, they agreed, for now they would simply enjoy each
other’s company and not pressure each other into anything
serious. It was this mutual respect that allowed the friendship to
grow.
    In
any case , Jack considered, I
still feel like I need to do a lot of growing up .
And he secretly believed he wouldn’t know what to do with a
‘serious girlfriend’.
    Jack
had no intention of sharing his last few weeks’ experiences
with Megan, not yet anyway, her being the last person he would want
thinking of him as a lunatic. Well that is what he feared, and he
didn’t want to scare her off. To Jack, Megan was too good a
catch to blow it.

    S everal
weeks later Jack had the urge to make contact with his parents again.
He sat at his computer and logged onto the program. Five small
windows appeared across his screen. The first one showed himself at
six years old on the tray of his father’s tractor; the second
showed himself being born; the third, his mother and father smiling
at him; the fourth, his camping trip, and the fifth displayed him
looking down at his parents’ yacht in the great vastness of the
ocean.
    “Far
out!” he cried, stunned.
    Thumbnails
of his experiences. Jack found this extremely weird. Weirder still,
he thought, was the wording accompanying each thumbnail.
    It
read, “If you wish to
alter the course of events in any of the above, please click on the
icon of your choosing.”
    What,
now I can alter my life history simply by typing in whatever I
choose? Jack thought wildly .
This is crazy!
    Suddenly
he felt daring. What if I played around a
little. After all, it’s just a computer, he precariously thought.
    Jack
typed beneath the icon showing his birthing movie, typing in an
imaginary situation, with a duration of three hours. Excited, he
donned his virtual reality helmet.

    Jack
feels warm again, and wet and claustrophobic, back in the confined
space of his mother’s womb. Water sloshes around him, and he
hears the now familiar sounds of his mother’s groaning and
crying out in pain. He once again senses the muscles contracting as
his body is being forced down the vaginal cavity, his mother’s
pelvic area expanding, making way for him. He feels again a huge
surge of muscle, a shriek of pain, and someone’s gloved hands
on his head. His eyes remain shut while the doctor’s hands
expertly manoeuvre him out from the warmth. He cries. A soft nappy
is wrapped around his tiny unwashed body and he is placed in his
mother’s arms again. Jack opens his eyes. This time he can
see her plainly, and can also understand what they’re saying.
    “Oh
my, I got meself a little pappy - Oh Johnson, look what we’s
got!”
    “You
is so clever, Boo” her husband spoke. “What we’s
got sure gonna be good. We gonna be a good family, Boo. Now we got
seven little pappies, we’s sure gonna have a good time!”
    Excellent! Jack nearly says out loud , realising with astonishment
that he is black, born into a large African American family in the
1960s.
    This
is going to be so so cool .
    He
is bathed and given to his black mother. Jack is now worried, as he
knows what happens next. A huge brown breast looms towards him that
is bigger than his entire body, the nipple being unceremoniously
shoved into his little mouth, causing him to gag. He isn’t so
sure of it being cool anymore, and turns his face away from the
monster mound, thrusting out his little arm.
    Everyone
in the room is taken aback. “How did he know how to do that,”
a nurse says, the staff looking at each other blankly.
    Jack
is whisked away and placed in a crib, in a temperate room with other
newborns. Most are sleeping but a few are crying. Jack watches the
faces of women walking past. Then at the ceiling, considering that
other babies had much the same boring view. A young mother peers
into his crib and smiles