Striker

by Charmaine Ross

“Even though you can't detect Vivien's… energy… is there some way you could see where she is?”

  The Callistean paused, so still Striker was afraid it wasn't going to answer. “There is a surge of energy unlike that which we've experienced before.”

  “A surge of energy?”

  “It is a mix of many. It is not of this planet. It seeks not to assimilate, but to destroy. The energy pattern is unclear, but we have just detected a hint of your female, although it changes as we speak.”

  “How is it changing?”

  His voice was strained. There was no way to know what was happening, but it was nothing good. Nothing to do with those frekking Reptiles was any good.

  “Morphing into…more. Her essence is the base.”

  “FREK!” His entire body shook. He needed to stop them. Now. “I…I have to go. Get to her. Can you…can you tell me exactly where she is?” At his sides, his fists clenched and unclenched.

  The Callistean inclined its head after a pause that seemed to stretch to the end of the universe but in reality was only a moment. “We will guide you.”

  He looked dubiously at the Callistean - who was not just physically connected to the vines, but was a part of the vines. “I mean no disrespect, but how are you going to do that?”

  The creature simply dropped to the ground in a pile of loose vines and velvety leaves. A quiet rustling had Striker spinning around, hardly trusting his eyes.

  The Callistean stood by the fissure, amongst several others close by. “A body is a relative state of mind. Where consciousness is, the matter around can also become solid and bend to awareness. Wherever there is life on this planet, we will be with you.”

  “Did you just…how did you?”

  “My awareness moved through the plant structure and simply reformed.”

  Simply. Reformed.

  Striker pursed his lips. Never in his born days had he seen any other species able to inhabit physical bodies at will. The Callisteans were so technologically advanced that they had somehow been able to change their body structure and become more plant-like so as not to succumb to the mind-enslavement.

  The Callistean inclined its head. “Your assumptions, although extremely rough, are fundamentally correct.”

  “You just read my mind? I thought you were going to stay out of it.”

  The Callistean simply folded its hands in front. “You think loudly.”

  Was nothing private on this planet? Striker nudged his ankle away from the contact with the vine while retaliative thoughts sprung to mind. Private thoughts were private thoughts. He'd really have to watch his tongue - err, mind - when he touched any fauna.

  He'd deal with all that later. Now, he had much more pressing issues. He hoped the Callisteans could guide him to save Vivien.

  * * *

  Vivien rose through varying layers of grey to open her eyes to a dim room. Several Reptiles stood around the table on which she lay. Quick and instinctive fear froze her body as one reached out and scraped a claw along her arm.

  Cool air caressed her wrist when the strap fell away. Stunned, Vivien watched as the rest of the straps were unlocked. The Reptiles stepped back, eyeing her with expectation gleaming in their dead eyes, as though waiting for something.

  Her body was heavy, her limbs moving through sludge. She didn’t know what they'd pumped into her. It could have been concrete by the way it clogged in her veins and made moving so hard.

  She sat up and threw heavy legs over the side of the table, panting. That small effort cost her. She lifted her head, eyeing the Reptiles. “Why have you unstrapped me?”

  One of the monsters leaned to another and hissed. There was an answering clack of teeth and an angry gurgling sound that silenced the speaker. She recognized it as the one that had injected her with whatever crap that still felt as though it surged through her system.

  She didn't know what trippy hallucinogenic it'd been, but she wasn't in a rush to repeat it again. Her worst nightmare didn’t come close to that terror.

  “Well, if you're not going to stop me, I think I'll be on my way…way.” She frowned. She hadn't meant to repeat that word.

  The Reptiles stirred. She glanced from one to the next. They stared. Unrelentingly. She could almost cut the tension in the air. She kind of felt as though there was a joke and she was the unknowing brunt of it. Not funny. Not funny at all.

  She wiggled stood and rested against the table. Her limbs trembled. She lifted a hand, ploughing her fingers through her hair. When her hand refused to come back down, she mentally forced her arm back down. It moved back to her side. Slowly.

  She could almost feel as though her arm wasn't really a part of her. Her arm jerked, the nerves lighting. She hadn’t wanted to move it.

  She eyed the monster leader. “What have you done to me…done to me!?”

  She gasped. She'd spoken against her will, the words just tumbling free. Her arms tingled with pins and needles that quickly spread through her body. She jerked upright and away from the table. Stepped. One leg, then the other.

  Her body moved, but not under her control.

  “What am I? A robot?...robot…robot…”

  This was getting more than creepy. The Reptiles looked excited, the floor scuffing as one moved from foot to foot.

  The pins and needles regressed, but her body grew numb. First her fingertips and toes, then it quickly spread up her limbs, throughout her lower abdomen, torso and up to her neck.

  Her body jerked ramrod straight and her head tilted so she looked down her nose at the Reptiles. She fought her arm that was rising, finger pointing to the lead Reptile, but was powerless to stop it.

  “You dare stand before your God?”

  Her voice thundered from her body, sounding nothing like a body using vocal cords could ever sound like. A deep voice that echoed throughout the room, and the Reptiles fell to their knees as one. The leader, however, looked up, eyes wide and full of mad glee.

  The words came out of her mouth, but she had no control over them. The numbness crept over her chin. Her nose. Cheeks. What the hell was happening to her!?

  “It is your last breath. Release control to me.” It took her a moment to realize the deep, unearthly voice came from her mouth. She hadn't even felt her lips move.

  “Release. I command you!”

  The numb sensation covered her face, and as it drew her eyelids closed, she sunk into the darkness behind.

  “Release, and never show yourself to me again.”

  She was sucked backwards, growing smaller and smaller. She stood in a weak spotlight, the darkness thick and inky around her. She reached out, pressed her hand against the edge of the light. It went no further, pressing against an invisible barrier. She pressed against the barrier with both hands. It didn't budge. Heart pumping, hysteria crushing her, she punched at the blackness. The barrier bent with the shape of her fist as though it was made of some type of spongy gel. A force beyond bounced her fist back at her. She was slammed to her backside.

  Her breathing was harsh in the absolute silence. She spun on hands and knees, the soft sound she made sounding impossibly dull, as though she was in a soundproof room.

  She tried looking through the darkness. There was nothing. Just…nothing. Solid, inky blackness that felt as though it could suffocate pressed down all around.

  “Hello?”

  She stood on shaky legs, circling. Again. And again. “Hello..? Is anyone there?” Almost afraid of a response.

  Silence.

  “What's happening? Where am I? Why have you put me here?”

  She stepped into the centre of the confined space, panting, sweating. Nerve endings lit and fired until her entire body shook, chest constricted, thoughts fracturing. Her breathing was loud in her ears.

  “Tell me what you've done to me!”

  Screaming, she pounded two fists against the black wall. The barrier dented but then straightened into smooth darkness again. There was no give. No way out. Nowhere to go.

/>   “Talk to me. Someone. Anyone. Tell me where I am!”

  She pounded her fists against the dark again...and again...until she lost time. Until exhaustion made her crumble in a puddle of trembling limbs to a floor that felt as though it wasn't even there. She curled into a ball within the limits of the tight little spotlight, body shaking, breathing jerking.

  No one answered.

  She didn’t think anyone would.

  She'd thought she'd lost hope before. Thought she knew what desolation was. She’d been wrong.

  Those experiences were only the prelude to the main show.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The spectrum of blue-greens of the surrounding forest were cold and frozen. The steel grey sky offered little in the way of adding any extra colour. In fact, it deepened the shadows and absorbed anything that might be counted as bright. Striker’s breath frosted with every exhale, the chill of dusk seeping through his clothing. The underside of the spindly leaves was coated with a layer of white ice. It was dark and desolate. A frozen wasteland, despite the surrounding forest of tall trees and spindly shrubs.

  The only thing more unnerving than the almost frozen landscape was the absolute silence. Apart from his footfalls punching through an icy crust, there wasn’t even the distant call of the small, flying feathered creature he’d seen before he’d entered the cave.

  There was an ominous press of air, as though the molecules had become denser, clinging to each other as though a herd sensing danger. A foreboding sense started as a throb behind his eyes but now pounded through his mind with the subtlety of a giant fist.

  He stilled, peering into the shadows. Faces soundlessly appeared in the tightening and shaping of leaves, the twist of young, supple twigs, the imprint on a leaf. As promised, the Callisteans surrounded him, guiding him, watching out. He wasn't used to the effect of appearing and disappearing faces, having accidentally swiped numerous of the planet’s inhabitants out of his way thinking it was a low hanging branch, rather than a limb. However, at the moment, their guidance had stopped.

  He spread his palm on the nearest trunk, closed his eyes, concentrated and spoke into his mind, “Where to now?”

  “We are unsure.”

  What did that even mean? Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. The ominous press of foreboding somehow grew heavier.

  “Why are you unsure?”

  “We can no longer sense her. Her essence has...changed.”

  “Changed? How?”

  “It is...unknown.”

  The Callistean sounded unsure. This wasn’t good. So not good. He needed to change tact. If the inhabitants were unsure, he had to find another way. “What type of energy do you detect?”

  “That is also unknown. It doesn’t appear to be from this universe.”

  Striker’s mind spun. Nothing made any sense.

  “How is that possible?” If anyone knew about impossible, it would be the Callisteans. They had made themselves half-flora for frek's sake.

  “The energy has shifted and grows stronger. It seeks to destroy.”

  That wasn’t good.

  “Can you take me to the energy?” If Vivien’s energy was somehow mixed in with this new unknown factor, logic told him she would be close by.

  A sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. This was bad. He could only pray Vivien was safe, but his prayers had never been things that were fulfilled. Experience taught him if the Reptiles were at the centre of it, it was nothing good.

  If something had happened to Viven… he swallowed hard… if something had, then it was his duty to stop the Reptiles from doing whatever they were doing. His duty – and his pleasure - to exact revenge if they’d no more than harmed a hair on her head.

  He forced aside the sick feeling. It wasn’t going to help him – or Vivien.

  “Yes,” came the simple answer.

  With a firm press of his mouth, he focused on watching the sliding cascade of leafy faces and followed on near silent steps. After hours of hiking, irregular sounds interrupted the silence of the forest. Movement. Sounds from bodies not made from leaves. He swiped aside a branch and nearly face-planted into a solid wall. His palm flattened on a smooth, cool, once-white surface that was now bruised by dirt and weathering.

  “Our city.” The voice that sounded in his head held sad tones.

  He’d seen holo-images of the proud and sleek cites from this planet. Not only had the Reptiles destroyed a race, they’d destroyed all they’d created as a part of their culture.

  “Not destroyed. Hidden.”

  Faces appeared in the leaves, and he moved to follow both them, and the line of the building. “Have you missed living here?”

  “We remember what it was like to have one’s own mind. As well as life in our previous forms.”

  He didn’t imagine the note of sadness now. “I can imagine.”

  “Life is… different. We have freedoms we did not before in these forms, but yes, having sovereignty over an individual body and mind is a gift,” the Callistean whispered in his mind.

  He couldn’t imagine losing your form, as well as your mind, to become something – other – in order to survive.

  “This is a mere blip on our evolutionary road, but one we took only out of necessity.”

  “Will you change again? I mean, if you’re able to?” That was a loaded question hanging on so many ifs. It sounded like they’d forced adaptation because of the Reptile invasion. Was there any way back to what they’d once been? He guessed it all depended on the Reptiles and invasion of this world.

  “In here.”

  “Where?”

  A branch moved and swiped against the wall. As it brushed downwards, Striker focused on an almost unnoticeable seam. The only indication it was a doorway was the straight vertical cut. An electronic keypad was set in the wall to one side of the frame. Dead. A slap to the face of the lock did nothing.

  “How are we going to get inside?”

  A vine slipped beneath the door, and before long, the seam widened enough for Striker to be able to leverage the door open with his fingertips. He tugged it wide enough to slip through into the dark interior.

  A vine twisted around his ankle, seeking contact with his skin. An image formed in his mind. It was a hallway, only not as he could see it with his physical eyes. The angle was all wrong, as though he was at ground level looking up. Everything was illuminated in shades of flickering iridescent green, as though shimmering through a heat haze. The hallway was truncated, giving him a fast case of vertigo. Vines laced the walls, particularly in the crease in the edges of the walls, floor and ceiling. He reached out a hand to the wall to brace himself and was thankful the awful feeling receded a little.

  “Where did that come from?’ he muttered, rubbing his eyes.

  “See with our eyes, if your muscle and blood ones can’t.”

  “That image was looking at things how you see?”

  He swallowed against the contents of his stomach that threatened to leave. The experience was somewhat – different. He blinked ferociously, but it did nothing to enable him to see anything more than a black wall.

  Hollow sounds echoed from deep within the building, dulled by distance, but there nonetheless. “Reptiles. Quickly. We have detected her physical form.”

  Striker nodded, steeling himself against what he needed to do and let the Callisteans be his eyes. He clenched his teeth. “Okay, but dim it down a bit. I nearly lost lunch looking at things like that.”

  He had a sense of confusion, then clarity. “Ah yes. We remember the sometimes unpleasant results of masticated food.”

  When they put it like that, eating didn’t sound so tempting. He guessed as a species of flora, of whatever they’d made themselves into being, they also ate like plants. Not that he knew too much about that either.

  “We are sustained through the earth, you are correct. Minerals. Water. Light. That is what we need to survive.”

  He’d be happy when he had his damned mind to h
imself again. He swallowed, remembering they’d even heard that thought.

  Just keep your mind on the mission, Deimos. No need getting the allies ruffled with unwarranted thinking.

  “Show me again, but this time can you mute the effect.”

  The image of the hallway reappeared in his mind, the colours mere shades of shadow. He held his hand to the wall to held with the vertigo and was happy when his stomach remained calm.

  He walked as quietly as he could, apart from his near silent footfalls and the gentle rustling of vines and leaves as he moved past. He followed the network of vines that grew over the wall, his fingers running over the cool, slippery surface. Every so often, a buzz a little like an electrical current would whizz beneath his touch.

  “It is simply the way our consciousness traverses the natural network.”

  That was pause for thought. He likened it to the pulsing synapses in the brain, where thought travelled along the minuscule network of connecting fibres.

  An eerie sound of ascent resonated within his mind. He might have gotten that thought right. A brash light appeared ahead, fast illuminating his surroundings as he headed towards it. Muted sound also became clearer and louder. Something was definitely happening at the end of the corridor.

  “Be still.”

  A vine wrapped around his shoulders, stopping him. Indistinct sounds morphed into the clacking and hissing of Reptiles. Interspersed were the smoother, more modular tones of a female voice. Vivien!

  He strained to run to her, but the vines held him firmly. “Halt. Wait.”

  The words were enough to cut through the urgency that shot through his system. He drew a steeling breath, clearing his mind. He’d forgotten the first rules of training. Never – never – go rushing into the unknown. Be alert. Be measured. And don’t act rashly. Just the thing he was about to do.

  “Your military training is quite logical,” said the Callistean.

  And he’d nearly forgotten it all at the sound of Vivien’s voice. She spoke again, but there was something off about her voice.

  “Move them. Over there. One by one. Hold them down securely. Connect them. No mistakes.”