Talon sighed. Kierra obviously didn’t understand the massive threat Kravis and the Sinupecs were to all kind in the galaxy. She had sacrificed her time and happiness to save people’s lives, not to destroy them. Kierra couldn’t be blamed for her outbursts. She was scared and had seen far too much in a day for an astrobiologist-in-training.
“I’m sorry, Kierra. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m just trying to get us out of here.”
“You’re not invincible, Talon. You think this guy cares about you? You think you can change him? What will he do? Give you away at your wedding?”
It was Talon’s turn to react now. “You have it all wrong, Kierra.”
“I hope so.” She fell back onto the ledge, threw her knees into her chest in a tight hug and turned her face to the wall like it was actually a window.
Talon had an epiphany. She ran to the ledge where Kierra sat and put her hand up to the wall, tracing along the small indention there. It was slightly colder than the rest of the room. A window. She ran back to the door and drew in a deep breath. “Open the window! I demand it!”
To her utter surprise, they actually complied. The steel blind that had been covering the window began to lift. Long parallel panels dipped behind each other in a mechanistic dance.
“Oh my God!” Kierra shouted.
Time slowed to a crawl as, little by little, a familiar sphere began forming. It sat like a delicate marble in the black void. They were not in a prison cell below the ground on some lost exoplanet, but on a ship – a ship that had slowed down to a stop next to her home planet. Was this a trick? Was the image real or a screen?
“It’s real,” Kierra confirmed like she had read Talon’s mind.
“No,” Talon whispered simply.
“Why are we here? Are they going to take us home?”
Talon could barely breathe. “I don’t think so.”
“Then why are we here!” she screamed in a horror. “What are they going to do?”
For the first time, Talon truly panicked. She ran to the door and began banging relentlessly. “Why are we here? What are you going to do? Please!” They didn’t care.
Talon’s emotions were real and flooding. She fell to the floor in a heap and began crying. Out of the ten billion people on that planet there was only one that mattered to her right now…and she couldn’t save him. Levi wasn’t supposed to get hurt. Talon imagined a world without him, and found no purpose in living. She had been arrogant and stupid. All of her efforts to stop her father had been futile and now she would have a front row seat to his destruction.
With nothing to do and no one to talk to but a friend that was giving her the silent treatment, her mind became a torturous battlefield. Hours passed where horrendous scenarios played in her mind. You should stay focused, Talon, it’s not too late. Her rational mind was seeming more and more like a hopeful child than a level-headed operative. There wasn’t anything she could do inside this room. If making her crazy was what Kravis wanted to accomplish, he was succeeding. Talon could imagine no worse torture. She noticed Kierra rubbing her jaw.
“Did they hurt you there too?”
Kierra continued to look out of the window when she said, “I guess so. I’ll take a sore jaw over being murdered.”
Talon was beginning to believe she deserved her friend’s anger. “I’m sorry, Kierra. I’m sorry I dragged you into this. It’s true that I’m a horrible friend. And you were right, I did use you. I hope one day you can forgive me.”
“What!?” Kierra screamed and sprung up onto her knees on the ledge. Her mouth was hanging wide open as she looked out of the window.
Without knowing what Kierra was seeing, Talon’s stomach lurched. She didn’t take a breath as she ran across the room and threw her hands on the glass. “Oh my God.”
The aurora lights were radiating from a point in the Northern hemisphere like an angry painter throwing colors in all directions. A bright flash caught Talon’s eye. The light expanded like her pupils and grew darker until finally it gave birth to another bed of swirling madness. Like heat lightening, there were three more and soon the world was engulfed in a deadly light show. Kierra began sobbing so loudly it snapped Talon out of her denial. She knew what she had just witnessed. Her home planet had just been destroyed by nuclear weapons.
Days could have passed and Talon would not have known. Somehow a blanket had been placed over her thighs and Kierra was laying on the floor in the corner of the room in a fetal position. Talon was dazed from the inundation of emotions and so exhausted from crying that she had fallen into a zombie-like state. She sat there on the ledge, contemplating the horror of the nuclear winter that Earth would soon experience. The swirls of the auroras had faded along with the natural vibrancy of a living planet. Now the world before her was overcome with raucous soot and black billowing clouds. They slowly floated like death itself strolling leisurely through the stratosphere, looking for victims. How many people were taken already? She wouldn’t believe Levi was one of them.
It hadn’t looked as though the southwest United States was a target, but the effects of nuclear warfare reached far beyond the blast sites. In the next couple of weeks, millions would die from respiratory complications and widespread famine. Other than the rest of his tour crew, Levi was in an unknown territory with no support system, supplies, or way to communicate. Even if Mantys found the means to send a rescue team to find him, it would be like looking for a star in the galaxy. Please, just let him make it, she prayed. If she ever got out of here, she would make it her mission to find her fiancé and bring him back safely.
Talon heard the screaming of a woman again. What was she saying? Talon strained to make out her cries. Levi? The woman clearly screamed her fiancé’s name. Talon panicked.
“Was that the girl again?” her cell mate woke up. Despite how swollen Kierra’s eyes were from crying, they were now wide with worry.
“I don’t know.” Like before, the woman’s cries disappeared as soon as they had begun. Did they have Levi? Her hand went to her chest to try and calm her racing heart.
“Maybe it’s Aberdeen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has anything changed?”
“No,” Talon’s eyes welled up again.
“I’m sorry about Levi,” Kierra said empathetically.
“Thank you.”
Hours passed again and Talon became hypnotized by her home planet. It was in full mourning. She was still in shock that her father bombarded the ground with nuclear weapons. She knew he was insane, but Kravis turned out to be crueler than she ever imagined. How could he have done this? How could anyone kill that many innocent people? For what? How was this destiny?
“Are you okay?” Kierra cut off her train of thought. “I mean, of course you aren’t. You just keep rubbing your temples.”
Talon hadn’t noticed, but she did feel a pressure on the sides of head. It wasn’t painful…yet. It felt like her ears were full of water. “Are you okay?” Talon had never seen another human being so frail and overcome as Kierra was right now.
“I’m just thinking about Marco,” a tear rolled down her cheek. “I miss him and all of his family are still in Fort Bragg. He needs me…I need him.”
“I’m so sorry, Kierra.”
“I don’t mean to be insensitive. I bet everybody is doing everything they can to bring Levi home safely.”
“Thank you…wait,” Talon jolted. “How long does it take for your feelings about Levi to come back if you stop taking your pills?”
“I usually start feeling it by now…but I don’t,” she admitted. “I mean, I’m sad of course, but—”
“I know, I know,” Talon stood to think. She knew her friend when she was obsessed with her husband-to-be. Kierra would have been hysterical under the influence of the Sacred Union, but she only felt natural, genuine, and hopeful concern. Talon paced the length of the room again. Something wasn’t right.
First, the room was too damn quiet. Unless it was re
inforced with a copious amount of sound proofing technology, there was no way it would have been this silent for the amount of time they had been in there. She also found it bizarre that no ships had come or gone from the hull. And wouldn’t the midaki be flooding to the ground to help? Wouldn’t ships be springing through the ashy clouds in exodus? This room and everything about it bothered her because it was too…simple. It was missing all the details of reality. The realization sent a shockwave of relief through her body. “We’re in a simulation.”
“A simulation?”
“Like the ones I used in the program for training. That wasn’t real,” she pointed out of the window. “This room isn’t real. You’re not real! Nothing about this shitty place is real!” She threw her hands up and screamed into the air at the tops of her lungs.
“I feel like it is,” Kierra countered.
Talon actually chuckled. “It’s supposed to. You are a computer simulation…well, kind of. Let me think. They must have done the extraction right after you were captured, which means,” she frowned, “that deep down, maybe in your subconscious, you really are pissed off at me. Anyways, that’s why you don’t care about Levi. You are just a snapshot of your brain the day you were captured. No one will ever come through that door because nothing exists beyond that door.” Talon was borderline ecstatic.
In a rare moment, Kierra was standing in utter confusion. Talon didn’t blame her. Most civilians didn’t know the government had such technology, and it disturbed her greatly that the Sinupecs had access to it as well. Talon pondered her years spent in simulations. This really was a very simple one, like it had been thrown together in a hurry. If the programmer had paid more attention to detail, she would have never figured it out. And if it was anything like her other experiences, there was a handler staring at some screen right now.
“I know this isn’t real!” she shouted into the air. “Take me out of here!” She was used to being met with silence. Either they didn’t care about her pleas, or they weren’t in the room to witness her figuring this all out. If the latter were true, and she could force her body to wake up, she could have a chance to escape before they came back…and time wasn’t on her side.
“Who was the screaming girl?” Kierra asked.
Talon smiled. “I think it was you. The real you. My brain picked it up from the outside world. You were screaming Levi’s name.”
Kierra squished her face. “I don’t like this. It’s weird.”
“Yes, it is, and it’s about to get a whole lot weirder,” she warned. “I need you to punch me in the face.”
“Punch you?” she squeaked.
“It’s not real. You know how when you’re in a dream, you feel things? Pain, pleasure, like you have to pee?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not real.”
“But I’ve peed my bed before.”
Talon sighed and tried to explain her thoughts better to computer Kierra. “But did you wake up after you did that? You’re just trying to shock my body enough that it wakes up, and these simulations can be very powerful so I need you to really hit me hard.”
“Okay,” Kierra conceded. She clenched her fist, twisted to gain momentum, and then swung forward. She slowed right before making contact and opened her palm.
“A slap?” Talon said, after she felt the sting on her cheek. “Come on Kierra, you were so mad at me before, remember? I used you to get us here. Everyone dying…that was real. And because of me, you may never see Marco ever agai—”
Kierra hit Talon so hard across the jaw she flew backwards and hit the cold slab floor with a thud.
“Damn!” she said through the pain. “I taught you well.”
“You’re still here,” Kierra offered a hand.
“I am,” Talon confessed. “I guess you’re going to have to punch me again.”
“You know what always wakes me up from a dream?”
“What?”
“Dying. Like that dream where you’re falling off a cliff and when you hit the ground your body jerks awake.”
“That is true,” she admitted, planting her feet. “We don’t have a cliff though.”
“Can I choke you out?”
Talon actually laughed. “I have a better idea. Nothing shocks your body more than drowning.” She said walking towards the bed pan and water
“You seem a little too excited about dying in a toilet.”
That was probably true, but she was just overjoyed that this was simply a nightmare. They filled the bed pan with what little water they were given. It has enough to cover her face up to her ears.
Talon took a deep breath. “Okay, this is it.”
“What if you’re wrong? What if this is real and you die and I’m left here all alone!” Kierra screeched in terror.
“I’m not.” she believed…with ninety percent certainty. There was no use in scaring the girl more with the off chance that she was about to willingly commit suicide. Hopefully Kierra knew CPR just in case.
“Goodbye?”
“See you soon,” she winked. “I’m going to get us the hell out of here. I promise.” And with that Talon dunked herself in the bowl.
She held her breath for as long as she could and tried to brace herself to fight the strong instincts to come. Her body began to react, sending adrenaline coursing through her veins. A minute passed and she began hyperventilating, gulping the air already in her mouth. For a split second she considered dying another way, but reminded herself again that soon she could wake up and have a real chance to escape.
As blackness began closing in on her from all sides, she felt an overwhelming sense of failure and embarrassment. To Talon’s surprise, her life’s mistakes began flashing through her mind and they seemed to be magnified tenfold. Why did she choose her career over her one true love? Why didn’t she run away from her father like her mother had? You should have answered that phone call. She and Levi could have lived happily ever after if she had made it a priority. But no, like an idiot she had wasted her life away in a trivial pursuit.
It’s not real, she reminded herself. Or was it? Why wasn’t she waking up? Talon lifted herself and as she went to take a life-saving breath, she realized water was filling her lungs. Kierra was forcing her body weight on top of Talon’s head. She relaxed and succumbed to the darkness that began to consume her. In her last moments, she prayed for another chance to make it all right again.
19 MIND GAMES
Talon’s eyes flew open and she was immediately blinded by florescent lights. After a blinking frenzy, she realized she was lying underneath an unfamiliar ceiling. Talon fought the urge to gulp a massive amount of air, remembering that her body had never actually been head first in a toilet bowl just moments before. Like a dog that kicks and whistles when it dreams, she hoped she had not thrashed and choked on her own spit in case a handler was in the room. The fact no one was standing over her was a good sign.
The pressure around her ears was much more noticeable now, and as she shrugged her shoulders and tilted her head down, she could feel a set of headphones had been placed over the crown of her head. They must have fitted her with them after Kierra’s screams interrupted her simulation not once, but twice. Now she couldn’t hear anything and had to rely on sight to gather information about her surroundings. Talon turned her chin to the right and left. She was in a small, unexceptional room. Other than the gurney she was strapped to, only a desk and a few files cabinets filled the space. The important thing was, she was alone.
She rubbed her head back and forth on the leather until the headphones slipped off and went crashing to the floor. Talon heard a high-pitched beeping sound coming from the computer monitor. It was an alarm – probably to inform the handler that she had reached consciousness. Now time really was trying to screw her. She had to get to that computer. The problem was she was secured by straps that were splayed over her body and tightened with ladder lock buckles. Not only that, but her hands were handcuffed to the bed for assurance. She wa
s flattered.
Talon twisted her legs, sending the sides of her feet flat with the cushion on the chair. As she pulled her knees up she easily slid underneath the belts over her ankles, calves, and thighs. With her lower body free she planted her feet and pushed her hips as hard as she could into the air, loosening the strap from the buckle around her hips. She could not escape those securing her upper body but she could loosen them. Talon reached her head down to her right arm and, with her teeth, grabbed the edge of a protective sheath covering an IV needle. Like an animal with its prey, she shook her head violently, releasing its sticky hold on her skin.
It was times like this that Talon prided herself on her flexibility and ambidextrousness. She sent her feet flying over her head and grabbed the catheter that was sending fluids into her arm from an IV bag. She carefully yanked the PVC tubing, causing the needle to slide from underneath the tape in her inner elbow. Luckily, it did not break.
Talon fed the catheter between her toes and dangled the needle above her up-turned palm. She grabbed it and twisted her wrist to jam it into the key hole of the handcuffs. She bent it at a ninety degree angle one way and then another. Satisfied with the shape, she wiggled it until the handcuffs fell open as smooth as butter. She smiled. From there, getting out the chair was a breeze.
Talon moved to the computer and simply unplugged it from the wall, cutting off the alarm in mid-beep. There were no windows or cameras that she could see, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. She had a decision to make. Either take her chances in the compound or take a hostage to give her a free tour, else pay with their life.
Voices from the hall drew closer until they were almost right outside the door. The decision was made for her. Talon didn’t have time to improvise a weapon. She slipped to the other side of the room and hugged the wall. The sound of two men carried through.
An Eagle's Revenge (Across the Infinite Void Book 2) Page 24
