The auto-taxi had not long turned off South Columbus Drive and on to East Jackson Drive.  Philip Saundersfoot sat in the back seat, an open briefcase to his right and a small Padd like device on his lap. It had not long gone 8pm and the sun had by now almost set.  The meeting he’d been at had lasted much longer than he’d hoped; a lot of them did.  The company he worked for as a financial advisor was having a few issues lately. He was just contacting his wife of 30 years.  They’d married at 21 after meeting two years previous.  If anyone talked about love at first sight, then he and Annabel where prime candidates.

He straightened out his tie and flattened out his silvery hair at the side.  Grey at 50 just like his old man, a slight paunch like him to.   What came next would have probably turned his hair grey any way; it certainly shocked him and his wife who also got the briefest glimpse of something truly horrible.

The body of a youngish man hit the hood of the taxi at tremendous speed; and to say he exploded on impact would have been an understatement! The force was enough put a large dent in the front, collapse one of the shock absorbers and break the axle.  The sight would have been unpleasant for even the strongest of stomachs Saundersfoot himself, threw up in his briefcase and his wife screamed her lungs out!

He heard a boom overhead less than a heartbeat later, and watched as glass rained down all around the taxi like some bizarre waterfall; not realising at the time that the top three floors of the Gatehouse Building had just been ripped apart by a massive explosion.

**********

Phoebe Andrianakis was asleep back in her own bed; or at least the bed she used to sleep in before leaving home.  The house in Thessaloniki where she’d lived with her mother never seemed to change.  The four-poster was at least two hundred years old, but was still wonderful to sleep in. Especially with crisp fresh sheets and pillowcases.

She was having a dream, a dream she’d had many times before; from around the age of six or seven.  She was still in the bed, but rather than being in a darkened room at night, it was around noon and her bed was by a roadside.  It was a perfectly straight road, it stretched off into the distance in both directions, and a line of telegraph poles with wires strung between them followed the road.  If she’d had to have guessed the location of this dream, Phoebe would have picked somewhere in America, Arizona desert may be, or an equally hot and barren area.  In the dream though; the heat never seemed to affect her.   Sometimes she’d just lay there in bed, before falling asleep in the dream; on other occasions she’d look around.  But always nothing but the road, telegraph poles and wide open space.  Phoebe never really understood the point of the dream and had never told anyone about it either.

So when she spotted the building out the corner of her eye; that made this version of the dream very different.  Phoebe sat up and swung her legs round.  Just like in the real world she was wearing a creamy coloured nightdress that came half way between her knees and ankles. By the side of her bed a small table and a digital clock reading 00:00; plus a pair of leather boot on the ground, just where they would be if she woke up at home.  She slipped on the boots and stood up, deciding she’d head over to the building.

The doctor made her way towards the building, noticing that it was some sort of ‘Gas Station’.  It was a single storey mainly wood structure, and a little dilapidated.  The windows appeared to be covered over, so she couldn’t see what was inside.  An old pinball machine sat to the left of the door with a score of 00074656 registered across the top.  She walked up to the door and pushed it, a bell above tinkled as it opened inwards.  Before Phoebe was able to look inside a man dived in front of her, wagged his finger and said “Tut tut tut.” Before slamming the door shut on her.

Andrianakis sprang up in her own bed at home and flicked on the bedside lamp. She spent a good few minutes trying to calm her breath down, her body visibly shaking.  If that had been a dream she’d just been through, then why the heck was the man she’d seen Jason with after they’d met his brother at the North Lodge standing in the doorway of the Gas station and preventing her access? Looking down at her boots; she also noted a thin layer of sand across the toes and around the heels.  What was going on, had she gone completely mad or something!? Had she really just been somewhere else entirely?

The clock on the table by her bed, told Phoebe it was a little after six thirty in the morning. She got up and padded her way across the wooden floor in her bare feet, exited her room and crept gingerly down the hall to the kitchen, where she grabbed herself a glass of water and sat down at the table.

She hadn’t been there more than a minute when her mother Iris poked her head around the kitchen door. “You’re up early.” Her mother smiled. “Thought you might have had a lie in?”

Phoebe just smiled at her mom, as she thought about all the things she’d never told her, including the dreams. This last one though had really got her.  She’d have to ask Jason who that man really was. A random stranger shouldn’t just pop into her dream and basically tell her off!  But then again if it wasn’t a dream, then what was going on?

They both sat and chatted at the table for a bit.  Talking about nothing in general, but enjoying each other’s company.  At just before seven they moved to the living room where Iris put the news on before sitting down on the sofa next to her daughter.

< “News has reached us of a major explosion and fire in Chicago late yesterday evening.  At approximately 20:10 Eastern Time a blast rocked the upper three floors of the Gatehouse Building, causing potential structural damage and raining glass upon the street below.  Unconfirmed reports suggest at least one fatality at the scene.  The cities fire department is still at the site which houses the Gatehouse Laboratory Facilities, a subsidiary of Bio-Link Industries…..” >

The doctor ran that name through her mind ‘Bio-Link, Bio-Link.’  Why was that so familiar to her?  And not just because they supplied medicines to hospitals throughout the world and also to Starfleet Medical. There was something else; she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

**********

Up in orbit two brothers understood exactly what the Gatehouse Laboratory Facilities and Bio-Link Industries meant to them.  It had been their mother who’d made the initial contact with Charlie and Dinari.  She seemed shaken the moment her image appeared before the two of them as they sat in the Captain’s ready room, having been informed there was a family emergency.

Neither of the brothers had heard about the explosion until their mother told them.  It was the place where their father worked; right from leaving college.  He also had a seat on the Bio-Link’s Board.  That wasn’t what concerned her though; the fact her husband hadn’t returned home that night and she was unable to contact him, had left her fearing the worst.

After the link was closed the two brothers looked at each other, a stunned silence hung in the air; both knew though exactly what the other was thinking.  There wasn’t much either of them could do stuck up in space, and despite the situation; getting compassionate leave to go searching for their father was unlikely to be granted.  Dinari knew of one man he could trust, at least to look into thinks and help keep them informed of developments.  ‘I mean Jason Devron was a good friend and he was already on leave.  So it couldn’t hurt to ask him, right?’