“Look down at the ground,” Talon ordered as they began walking back down the lengthy corridor.
The Sinupecs began acting in the same peculiar way – ceasing their underwhelming conversations, shuffling to the sides, and saluting her as they passed. Kierra couldn’t help but investigate their unusual behavior. Talon could feel her tense, just as Kasilla had before her psychotic break. With all eyes on them, Talon knew she had an image to uphold.
“What are they—”
“Shut up, Wharran,” Talon barked loudly and shoved the gun into her side.
“Tal—!” Kierra screamed with surprise as the cold metal found her flesh.
Talon shoved her friend against the wall, and put a hand around her throat. They couldn’t know she was friendly with a prisoner. Kierra looked terrified so Talon loosened her grip and leaned into her ear. “Either you want to get out of here or you don’t.”
“You’re scaring me,” she whispered back. A tear escaped her eye.
Talon’s heart went out to Kierra. She had to remember that her friend was not only a civilian, but probably one of the most sensitive and innocent kinds. It wasn’t a hormone shift that was causing the girl to lose her composure, but everything she had endured. Kierra had witnessed the slaughtering of innocent lives in a hail of gunfire, had her brain extracted, and, despite its relative luxuries, was imprisoned for over sixty hours in isolation.
“I swear to you, I am not mind controlled,” Talon looked into her eyes and spoke with as much sincerity as she could convey. “Trust me.”
Kierra nodded just as she had in the simulation, but continued to shake in fear. Talon jerked her in front and shoved her forward. Now she was acting like a prisoner, but there was no acting involved. Talon swore she would get her home safely if it was the last thing she did with her life. And if they both lived, Talon assumed after this ordeal she would have to hunt for another maid of honor.
“She’s our hero,” a woman declared out loud.
The notion made her sick and walk all the faster. She threw the door to the stairwell open and was about to break her act with Kierra when the voice of the Sinupec who had escorted her to Kierra’s room carried up the stairs.
“...too heavy for his skinny ass.”
“Uueerrgh,” the man moaned dramatically.
“Get him to sick bay and put some clothes on him. Idiots!” he roared angrily.
Talon nudged Kierra up the stairs. They had to get out of here before the scrawny man – or the other three men she took out outside the simulation room – could tattle. The face of the handsome man flashed in her brain. He definitely would have recovered from his scrotal injuries. Why hadn’t he set off alarms? Talon didn’t have time to dwell. The two women rushed up the stairs as fast as they could.
“I have to do this again,” Talon said, displaying the gun in her hand.
Kierra nodded and Talon played captor once more. A woman saw them coming and immediately jumped into a stiff position for a salute.
“Take me to the hanger bay,” Talon ordered.
“Yes ma’am.”
Five minutes later, Talon was sitting in the cockpit of a spaceship with two willing Sinupec aviators. She was as giggly as she was confused. These people were the dumbest beings in the entire cosmos. They listened to everything she commanded. It made absolutely no sense, and she didn’t care. She was almost out of here. The platform was rising.
“Kelly and Brody!” Kierra pointed to the ground from their elevated position.
Talon ran to the window and looked down. Standing there, with guns to their heads were, indeed, her lost comrades. In the middle was a woman.
“Stop!” Talon commanded the pilots.
Talon studied the lady in disbelief. She was dressed in Sinupec uniform and had short, layered hair with side-swept bangs. She stepped forward, beckoning Talon to stare more. She radiated confidence, command, seriousness, and even wisdom. One thing she didn’t look was surprised. Talon knew she was the mystery woman, the hooded figure, the older one, the reason she went down the hill – and it wasn’t Lennon.
“That’s you,” Kierra whispered in astonishment.
Indeed it was. Talon was either drugged out of her mind or had a twin sister. This whole time, they all thought she was her. That made this woman an evil twin sister, and Talon’s eyes narrowed in hatred.
20 THE GIFT OF TIME
Talon felt like they were the only two in the bay. From inside the ship’s body, Talon tried to get a read on her doppelganger by using her training in body language and micro-facial muscular expression analysis. She wasn’t giving her anything. Except for the woman’s appearance, she seemed everything Talon was not – knowing, unconfused, and annoyingly stoic. She seemed to slither like an unwelcome serpent into Talon’s soul, unnerving her to the bone. Talon would never let her know it as she continued to glare, refusing to be intimidated. If it came down to it, she would shoot the pilots and fly Kierra out of here if meant leaving Brody and Kelly behind. Kierra was her priority now and she would not negotiate with terrorists.
The woman broke eye contact. Talon watched as she spoke to her men. Soon enough they lowered their guns. Even from a distance, Talon saw Brody release a balloon of air. Kelly, on the other hand, stood unwavering. Then, to her surprise, the two Sinupecs left the hanger, leaving the woman alone and vulnerable. Interesting. Her look-a-like then approached her crew members and began speaking to them.
Her body language was non-aggressive, customary. Brody and Kelly kept looking up into the cockpit of the ship, just to confirm a different person was indeed addressing them. Brody began nodding enthusiastically. Kelly sliced his hand in the air and began bouncing a pointed finger in disagreement. After another minute of what looked to be negotiations, the two prisoners walked away from her and towards the ship. It seemed she was letting them go, probably in exchange for Talon herself, in which case she would gladly surrender.
The platform lowered and the pilots were given directions via radio to open the side hatch. Talon aimed her weapon down the ramp as they became exposed. She was prepared for an all-out gun battle, but the woman stood in the same statuesque way and with the same unreadable expression on her face. As Kelly and Brody boarded, Talon did not dare take her eyes off the enemy. Only after the hatch banged shut, did she address them.
“I thought you were dead. I saw your bodies.” Like Kierra, the two men seemed in good health.
“Stunned,” Kelly replied.
“What about Asher?”
“You killed him.”
“What?” Talon asked confused.
“When you unlatched his helmet. You cut his oxygen supply.”
“Wha…no. I…I…,” she couldn’t accept it. She had assumed they were all dead. She didn’t mean to!
“Why do you look like her?” Brody snapped, piercing Talon’s bubble of denial.
“I swear, I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before now.”
“Then why are you dressed like one of them. I knew it,” he looked her up and down with disgust. “You’re one of them. You snuck your way into the program and cheated your way through. It’s the only reason you beat me.”
Talon turned to Kelly, not having the patience for Brody’s childish behavior at the given moment. “What did she say? Is this an exchange?”
“No. She said to tell you we could go.”
“What? She’s just going to let us go? Me included?”
“It looks that way.”
“And,” Brody pressed.
Kelly sighed. “And nothing. She is trying to play mind games.”
Talon had been dealing with those for days. She could take one more. “What else did she say?”
“She wants you to come off the ship…by choice.”
“What? Why would I do that?” Curiosity. Answers.
“Yeah, she said if you come off the ship she will tell you everything. She said you would not be a prisoner and you could leave whenever you wanted,” Brody restated, al
though Talon was sure with much less eloquence.
“It’s a trap!” Kierra interjected.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then she will not stop us.”
“Yeah, but then she said the future you saw will come true and you will never see her again.”
“That’s because we’re going to come back here and blast the hell out of this place,” Kelly snapped.
“What future did you see?” Brody probed. “And why can you see the future?”
“Talon,” Kierra spoke low after Talon dipped her head in thought. “You’re not actually considering staying in the hands of the enemy, are you? What about Levi? You have a chance to go home.”
Kierra was right. “Let’s go.”
“Oh, thank God,” Kierra heaved in relief.
As the platform began raising to the surface again, she never took her eyes off the doppelganger, who stood so confident in her offer that Talon wanted to flip her the bird. How dare she be so cocky to believe Talon would choose her over being with Levi? When she had been drowning in the simulation, her fiancé had been her greatest mistake. A mistake she vowed to never make again. She would always choose him.
But he would still be in danger, a voice teased in the back of her mind as a memory of the firestorm appeared. That wasn’t even real, Talon shouted back. But any threat made by one of them should be taken seriously, it said again, you’ve come so far. She couldn’t argue with that logic. If something, anything, did happen, she would regret it for the rest of her life. And could she really live with herself not knowing why a woman who was physically identical to her existed?
Talon looked to the woman again and for the first time, granules of worry and desperation began to emerge in her eyes. Talon knew those eyes. They were as worn as hers were nowadays from all the nightmares. Whether this woman was a twin or a clone, she was still Talon’s flesh and blood and nowhere in Talon’s genes and in no iteration of them could there be the ability to kill billions of innocent lives. This look-a-like couldn’t be one of them, could she? Was she undercover somehow, trapped in their world and trying to send a message? Was she trying to show Talon that, by letting her friends go, she was inherently good? Was this a plea for help? Talon suddenly felt pulled.
“Stop.” The words escaped her lips almost involuntarily.
“What? No!” Kierra protested. “You can’t get off this ship! I’m not letting you!”
“Activate lie detection.” Blink, blink.
“Talon—” Kelly started to dispute.
“I’m only going down for a minute.” Talon was convinced that’s all she needed to determine if her kin was good or evil…if she needed Talon’s help. Otherwise, she swore to leave with her crew. “I will be right back, Kierra.”
Kierra surprised her by shaking her head in disappointment. It was more painful than any desperate cry. “You are not the person I know, and you are certainly not the person Levi fell in love with. You don’t deserve him.”
A sharp pain of guilt filled her chest and inundated her belly until she felt sick. She hated disappointing the people that she loved. Talon opened her mouth to explain, but nothing came out. Whether that was because Kierra was right or wrong she did not know. Hopefully one day her friend would at least understand. Talon looked at Kelly in an unspoken request as she stepped off the ship. If this is a trap, leave me.
It was strange walking towards someone that looked exactly like her without a mirror involved. Other than her shorter hairstyle, the two shared the same height, shape, eyes, face, everything. How was this possible? Were the Sinupecs cloning people? Just because it had been illegalized wouldn’t necessarily discourage them. Plus, it appeared they had the means to do whatever they wanted.
As Talon drew closer, she could see they were not a hundred percent identical after all. This woman had darker circles under her eyes, and her skin seemed to be missing a healthy glow – understandable if she spent her days in an underground starless planet. Her eyes began to give her away again. She seemed…relieved and then happy. A subtle grin appeared on her face that wasn’t at all sinister, but entirely genuine. Crow’s feet formed around her eyes and Talon could now see she was older. The older one.
“Talon,” she spoke first.
“And your name is?”
“The same.”
“Why would we have the same name? Are you not my sister?”
“No.”
“A clone?”
“No.”
“You look older than I do.”
“I am.”
“How old?”
“I’m thirty-eight.”
“Are you my mother?” Although she didn’t have to run through the math to know that wasn’t possible either. Talon ran out of ideas.
“No, Talon. Come, I have much to explain to you.”
“You can explain it to me right here, right now,” she held up her gun. “First, tell me you are going to let my team leave safely.”
“Yes, I said I would,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“What do you mean about the same future happening? The one I saw in the simulation where these people bomb and kill millions of innocent lives?”
“It will be billions in the aftermath.”
Talon’s trigger finger waivered. “How could you do that?!”
“The humans will do that to themselves.”
Lie probable, 87% “You’re a damn liar.”
“Ah, I forgot about those contacts. You’re right, I did lie.”
“Tell me the truth!” She didn’t have time for any more games.
The woman sighed and looked at Talon with genuine sorrow. “It’s already happened, what you saw. So no, the humans will not do that to themselves, they have already done it to themselves. I saw it with my own eyes. I just arrived minutes ago. I’m sorry, I…I couldn’t stop it.”
No lies had been detected, but that didn’t mean this copycat didn’t know how to fool the bionic reader. Bale said they weren’t 100% reliable. “You told them I could help. How can I help if it’s already happened?” Talon tried not to become too flustered. She wouldn’t believe her.
“You can…next time. I failed my cycle,” she dipped her chin in a moment of shame.
For the first time, Talon could see herself in the person standing in front of her. “You have a minute to convince me not to get back on that ship. How did you know what would happen on Earth before it actually happened?” she hissed.
“I’m you, Talon…in the future.”
Talon physically recoiled in shock. She was expecting anything but that. “If you are future me, then that would mean I went back into the past. That’s never going to happen.”
“Well, it did. I did anyways. This is a different timeline than the one I grew up in. That was the whole point if I had been successful. We may have been born the same person, but you and I have lived two very different lives.”
“So that would make us two different people who just happen to look like each other.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true.”
“Time travel isn’t possible.”
“Yes, it is, and it’s been possible for a long time now. This whole organization…,”
“Terrorist organization,” Talon corrected.
“…it’s here for the purpose of saving Earth. That one event is the reason Kravis started this whole thing. It was his idea, you know.”
“Kravis?! You mean our sick father who raped and murdered our mother? You mean the man who slaughtered hundreds of innocent lives in the largest terrorist attacks Ohmani has ever seen?” Talon actually laughed in disbelief. “He was right. I would work for him one day, but that me was you. We are two very different people because I will never be involved in this organization. You’ve been fooled like the rest of them,” she scoffed.
“First of all, Kravis did not rape our mother. Secondly, I don’t work for Kravis, but I do work for the cause. I work for the people, just like you. I know he sounds delusional and he
’s made immense mistakes in the past for which I’ve tried to make amends, but once you know the truth about everything you will at least understand how he came to be the way he is.”
“The things he’s done are unforgivable. If you are some other me that went back into the past, why didn’t you stop our mother from being murdered? Why not stop the attacks five and a half years ago?”
“It’s complicated. I was going to tell you everything later tonight.”
“The lighting ceremony?”
“Yes, that’s what they call it when someone becomes enlightened to the cause. It is your destiny to go back now and try to save Earth.”
“And if I fail?”
“Then you must bring the Talon of the new timeline into the light so we can try again.”
“So you’re passing the savior torch onto me, huh? How many of us have there been?”
“You will be the fourteenth.”
“What? I—”
“It will become clearer soon. Send your people away. We are running out of time.”
Talon closed her eyes in defeat. She would never be able to rationalize leaving now, and didn’t want to waste time with torturous internal monologue. With a nod the older one radioed in for the pilots to fly out. Talon didn’t even turn to wave goodbye. She couldn’t stomach the look on Kierra’s face and she couldn’t stomach the possibility that Kierra wouldn’t bother to show her face either. At least Kierra was mad at her at all. That meant she was alive.
“You knew, this whole time, that I would stay,” she lowered the gun in defeat.
“I know myself pretty well.”
“It was all you, wasn’t it? The note, the person I chased on the moon.” Talon scoffed as she ran through the memories. “No wonder the guy at the prison knew my name.”
“Everything I have done over the past weeks has been for this moment. It all started with the photographers and the hat. The first would ensure you would end up on the moon assignment, and the hat, well…I knew that would turn you into a shark that had smelled blood.”
“You ruined my career?” Talon screamed. “And you knew what my hat looked like—”
An Eagle's Revenge (Across the Infinite Void Book 2) Page 26
