Ouroboros 2: Before

by Odette C. Bell

  He nodded. ‘Yes, this province has an active military, and from what I can tell, they are vicious and suspicious. And double yes, we will want to avoid them.’

  She sighed heavily. ‘What else? What’s the current political situation? And if they close the gates to the city at night, aren’t we going to require some kind of identification? I mean if they are as paranoid as they sound, I’m sure they’re not going to let just anybody walk into their city. Come to think of it, while we both now speak perfect Vexian, do we have accents? Will they mistake us as travelers from one of the other provinces?’

  Though she had once been distracted, now she was focused, and she was bombarding him with questions.

  He had to put his hands up. ‘The short answer is I don’t know.’

  She stared at him with wide eyes. ‘That’s not good enough,’ she said in a small voice, ‘last night you had to shoot a guy, and while that worked in the middle of nowhere, I’m not sure it will work again.’

  He conceded her point by offering a sigh. ‘I know it’s not good enough, but I really don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘Carson,’ she suddenly clutched her hands into fists, and he could see that she was digging her fingernails hard into her palms. It was likely only the thick fabric of her gloves that stopped her from cutting herself. ‘I don’t want to go into that city if I don’t know what will happen. I know I was all for it last night, but I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to—’

  ‘We don’t have an option,’ he snapped. ‘Unless the entity can tell us exactly what to do, then we have to figure it out for ourselves. And the only plan I can come up with that makes any sense is to gather as much data as we can. From scientific to historical, if we could just find mentions of anything that could suggest the existence of a bridge between dimensions or time gates, then we’ll have a hope. If not . . .’ he trailed off.

  ‘Carson,’ she repeated, still digging her fingernails into her palms, ‘I’m terrified,’ she said simply.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he snapped back, ‘just . . . tell us, god dammit,’ he suddenly shouted.

  She stumbled backwards, startled.

  ‘I’m not talking to you; I’m talking to the entity,’ he clarified through clenched teeth. ‘Now tell us, for crying out loud. Stop playing games. If you know something, help us out. If going to the city is suicide, let us know. You must know more than you told us. So please, please help us.’

  Though Nida had stumbled back, and her mouth dropped open from surprise, now she froze on the spot. Slowly her lips closed, and as they did, a trickle of blue light escaped over them. ‘We do not know. We cannot sense the existence of a bridge between dimensions until we are up close. They are only as large as a fraction of an atom. We are not capable of sensing whether this place has one. We must simply search until we find.’

  Carson shook his head bitterly. ‘That’s not good enough. This planet is enormous, and it is split up into three warring factions. We can’t exactly wander around each of them looking for a crack in an atom,’ he spat, all of the complicated and confused emotions he had felt that day suddenly surging into one ball of anger. It sat in his stomach, burning bright and hot.

  ‘You must search,’ the entity spoke through Nida, ‘find. Look.’

  ‘This task is impossible. There must be some way to figure out where the dimension bridge is in this time zone without searching every single particle on the entire planet,’ his voice shook with incredulity and almost petulant indignation at the impossible task the entity had given him.

  ‘I cannot give you more, but I can confirm that you are right. You should search the records of this planet for any mention of strange spatial disturbances.’

  Carson took a quick step forward, his heart leaping at the fact the entity had finally given him some usable information. ‘What do we look for exactly? What kind of spatial disturbances will the bridge between dimensions create?’

  ‘They suck matter into a point. The effect will only last for several meters around the radius of the crack in space, and it will not be strong enough to mimic the effects of a black hole. But objects, nearby trees or plants or stones or people, will be pulled together into a ball.’

  Carson’s lips dropped open. ‘That would be easy to spot,’ he noted in a shaky voice.

  ‘As for time gates, you have already seen the spatial effects that accompany them. Objects float in their vicinity. There are multiple time gates on this planet, and they shift around, but only every few years. If you find mentions of them, there is every chance they will still be active.’

  Carson briefly closed his eyes. Finally he was getting somewhere. Why hadn’t he thrown a hissy fit and demanded to talk to the entity sooner?

  When he opened his eyes, he noticed that Nida was wobbling on her feet. ‘Do what you are already doing. Travel to the cities, use your scanner to find whatever information you can. Trawl through that data for any mention of those unique spatial disturbances.’

  ‘Hold on, how long does a bridge between dimensions last? I mean, does it appear for a few seconds and disappear again? Because if it does, we’re screwed,’ he answered honestly.

  ‘Cracks can persist for a nanosecond or thousands of years. The one I travelled through was small and apparently fleeting, but I have heard of the existence of others that remain. But I am sorry; I can’t tell you where or when they are.’

  He nodded, sighing through his relief as he did.

  Finally he was getting somewhere.

  Then he saw Nida wobble again. In fact, this time she lurched to the side, and she only just caught herself before she fell over.

  ‘Nida?’ He rushed up to her.

  ‘We are sorry; this is all we can give. We are too weak, we must rest, we must . . .’ Nida slumped back, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

  He screamed her name and caught her before she could fall. Then he had the briefest of moments as he stared into her unconscious face before he felt something.

  The leaves underneath him shifted, as did the twigs and the stones. And one look up into the canopy of the trees confirmed a horrible sight.

  They were pulling towards him.

  And if not him, her.

  With a creak and groan, a branch flew off a tree several meters to his side.

  He dropped Nida, punched forward, and grabbed it, twisting on his feet and absorbing the force of the move as he flung the branch away.

  His hands smarted from the pain, but he didn’t have the opportunity to check them.

  Suddenly another branch broke off a tree and careened towards Nida.

  He didn’t have the time to reach her. But, out of instinct, he threw his right hand forward.

  The branch was obliterated in a blast of power from the device.

  Yet just as soon as it was destroyed, other objects began to break off the trees and lift from the ground, all of them flying towards her.

  He spun around, throwing his right hand out and concentrating just as he would if he were using his implant.

  It worked. He managed to destroy what neared, or hold it at bay.

  Just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The branches and stones and twigs that had lifted into the air simply dropped.

  He stood there, panting, staring down at the device. It glowed a powerful red.

  While the telekinetic implant only worked on telekinetic objects, this device worked on anything. And it was . . . incredible. To see it working, to feel it as you manipulated objects with your mind, directing the power of that red glow to whatever you set your eyes on.

  Incredible.

  But no matter how incredible it was, that didn’t stop him from running over to Nida, skidding onto his knees, and checking her.

  She’d slumped on the ground, her head on a strange angle.

  He pushed the veil from her eyes, and bunched her fringe away from her forehead. ‘Nida? Nida?’ He could barely speak.

  Though using the device hadn’t b
een as hard as it had the first time, he was still tired. He could feel this creeping lethargy soak up his bones, chilling him as it went, as if a glazier had grown up from his feet.

  ‘Nida?’ He kept pawing at her face, but soon it was clear she would not wake up.

  . . . .

  He’d done this.

  In a moment of realization that felt like a punch to the gut, he understood he had done this. By forcing the entity to speak, it had used power, and that had left it vulnerable to corruption.

  Guilt washed over him, but he didn’t let that stop him. He knelt down, picked Nida up, picked a direction, and ran.

  As he did, he commanded his armor to cover his body. All it took was a thought.

  And as soon as the plating covered his arms and head, he was immediately possessed with the strength he needed to carry her and sprint as fast as he could.

  He couldn’t stay in the center of this exploded glade of trees.

  Though he hadn’t heard anyone around, and the scanner hadn’t picked up life signs, he couldn’t run the risk of someone having seen his miraculous attempts at saving Nida. This province sounded like it was dangerous at the best of times, but if any of its citizens came across Nida and him surrounded by a scene of total destruction in the forest, suspicions would be raised. And in a place like this when you raised suspicions, you called the army. And Carson couldn’t afford that, so he ran. Like the wind.

  Now that his armor covered him, he could access the on-board scanners and didn’t need to rely on his hand-held one. So he was sure to sprint far away from town and far away from people. He didn’t stop until he’d travelled a good 10 kilometers, and even then he kept his armor on.

  Without a word, he set her down and waited.

  It took almost an hour for her to regain consciousness. For that entire time he simply sat right by her side, his arms locked around his knees, and his mind deep in thought.

  Though it had cost him dearly, the entity had given him valuable information. Now they had a concrete plan. All they had to do was access as much information as they could from as many sources as they could. Then they could analyze it for any mention of strange spatial anomalies where objects were either sucked into a point or floated into the air.

  It sounded simple when he thought about it, but he knew how complex it truly was.

  Judging by the current political situation on this planet, it would be fair to assume that the general populous would be paranoid, and the government even more so. If such spatial anomalies had been found, no doubt all information of them was top secret. The people of this time didn’t have the technological and scientific know-how to understand what the anomalies were, so they would probably assume they were some kind of radical new enemy weapon, and treat them as such.

  So if he wanted to find any information about them, he would likely have to gain access to restricted information, which meant gaining access to restricted buildings.

  As he sat there waiting for her to rouse, he tried to figure out if that was feasible.

  With his armor, his gun, his scanner, and the device, it could be. But he couldn’t exactly afford to take any of these restricted buildings on with a frontal assault. As soon as the people in this province became aware of how powerful he was, they would send reinforcements. And considering the Vex did not value life, the governments of this world would think nothing of throwing life after life at Carson until he failed.

  The only other option would be to infiltrate these facilities secretly, and that was something he could probably pull off, especially with the use of his scanner. If any of the information he was after was stored electronically, he would be able to access it from a distance, especially if it was being talked about over the airwaves. And if not . . . if he had to actually physically gain access to some restricted building, he could probably do that. With time and a great deal of planning.

  As he sat there and thought, he looked up at her once every minute.

  She looked pale, really, really pale. He’d already pulled the glove off her left hand, and he could only vaguely see a hint of blue to her flesh.

  That really worried him.

  The entity could further corrupt at any point, and he’d seen what would happen if it did.

  He found himself rocking back and forth where he sat.

  Then she snuffled.

  And it made him want to cheer.

  He pushed himself up, practically scrabbling towards her. ‘Nida?’

  It took her a long time but finally she opened her eyes. ‘Harry?’

  ‘No, Carson,’ he said, incapable of keeping the high-toned indignation from his voice.

  ‘I was teasing,’ she managed as she winced and pushed herself up. ‘What happened?’

  He swallowed. He took a breath. And then he spilled, ‘it was my fault,’ his voice shook, and so it should, because it had been his fault. He deserved to feel completely guilty about this. ‘I’m so sorry I pushed the entity,’ he began.

  She put her hand up, closed her eyes, and looked as if she was about to fall asleep again. But then she sighed, winked an eye open and shook her head. ‘It isn’t your fault. I’m sure the entity would have intervened and told us at some point anyway, and it’s lucky that you forced it to do so in the forest. I just . . . what if that had happened in a city, with people around?’

  He didn’t answer her question. There was no point. Because the answer wasn’t something she would want to hear.

  He had to distract her, so he pushed himself to his knees, stood up, and walked several steps away. ‘We have a plan now,’ he said as he clasped his hands behind him, feeling and no doubt looking like a lieutenant in the Galactic Coalition Academy. It was as if he were giving a briefing, and he glanced over to Nida to note that his distraction was working. She was staring at him with the perfect kind of rapt attention he would hope any cadet would hold for one of his briefings.

  ‘What do we do?’ she asked.

  ‘We continue as planned. We go to the city, we scout it out, and we try to find any restricted buildings. Now I’m just assuming, but I imagine it is a good assumption, that the data we’re looking for will be locked down tight. The races of this planet are paranoid, and they’ve been at war for years. They don’t trust each other, and they don’t trust surprises. And spatial anomalies are pretty damn surprising.’

  She nodded, looking suitably attentive. And even though she occasionally closed her eyes and appeared as though she was about to lose consciousness again, she managed to stay awake.

  Though he wanted to rush to her side to check she was okay, and possibly even give her a shoulder to lean on, he soon realized that appealing to her duties as a cadet would be more likely to keep her awake.

  ‘This is a dangerous mission, way beyond anything an undergrad at the Academy would be asked to join in,’ he said, forcing his chest out as he spoke.

  ‘Wow, I hope I get extra credit for it then,’ she quipped. She tried to laugh at her own bad joke, but winced, clutching a hand to her mouth.

  ‘Are you alright?’ he asked automatically, briefly dropping his authoritative routine.

  He couldn’t hold his concern in any longer, and he started to edge towards her.

  She shook her head. ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she said suddenly, lurching to her feet and stumbling off into the bushes.

  Her thoughts were correct, and she was sick.

  When she stumbled back out of the bushes, he gave her a commiserating, thin-lipped smile. ‘Feeling better?’

  She shrugged. ‘I could really use some advanced medical treatment right now. My stomach is doing loops around my feet.’

  He didn’t quite understand that image, but whatever she was trying to convey, he could bet it wasn’t pleasant.

  Deciding the best thing to do was to distract her again, he clapped his hands behind his back. ‘So, to repeat, we will concentrate on infiltrating the city, scouting out the important buildings, and figuring out what kind of data they
may hold. It’s just a guess, but I imagine what we want is in research facilities of some kind. Especially weapons research facilities. The city we’re heading to may not have one, but if it does, that’s where we should start. If the people of this province have ever come across a spatial anomaly, they are going to want to use it to their advantage. And that, unfortunately, in this day and age means weapons.’

  She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, but managed to nod. ‘All right, let’s do it.’

  Though he was acting gung ho, he gave a lengthy pause. ‘. . . Now?’

  She still had her hand pressed against her mouth and she looked up at him from over her fingers. ‘Yes, is there a problem?’

  Sure, there was a problem; she had just been sick in the bushes, and she’d only regained consciousness a few minutes ago.

  Maybe she could read his mind and guess his hesitation, because she suddenly forced herself to her feet.

  Though he was at her side, hovering next to her like a worried parent, she managed to stand on her own.

  She shot him a terse look that told him she was fine. ‘We have to do this. No time for lying around in the bushes. We’ve already wasted a day and a half.’

  He grimaced at her statement. It was true.

  It was time to get to the city.

  He turned, instinctively knowing what direction it was in. He was still wearing his armor, and the on-board scanners helped him orient. ‘Okay,’ he said under his breath. His voice sounded weak because his resolve was weak. He shot a nervous glance her way.

  She held it. ‘I’m fine. I’ve got you, right?’ she added at the end.

  ‘For what good that’s worth,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘Just say yes,’ she pressed her lips together, and just for a moment looked as if she wanted to cry. She had been through a hell of a lot, after all. But that didn’t stop her from repeating, ‘just say yes.’

  So he did. ‘Yes, you’ve got me.’

  ‘Then let’s go,’ she said in a husky voice as she walked past him. Though she was unsteady on her feet initially, with every step she took, her natural balance returned. Well, her unnatural balance returned. Because Nida had never been stable on her feet. But now at least she didn’t stagger quite so much.