Ouroboros 3: Repeat

by Odette C. Bell

  ‘Is she unconscious? Don’t speak in front of her,’ someone else chided.

  ‘It doesn’t matter; it’s not like she’s going anywhere. She’s blocked off from the entity. She has no power, and she’s pumped full of drugs and restrained,’ someone else replied.

  The entity.

  She was blocked off from it.

  Though she’d already sensed that fact, to have it confirmed sent a strange kind of energy rippling through her.

  Determination.

  And the feeling that the opportunity she had been desperate to find was finally upon her.

  ‘How is the other one? Do we have all the information we need from the human male?’

  ‘Yes. He’s been forthcoming. We know all he does on the likely response of the Galactic Coalition Academy. The General will be pleased. Though we should probably run the simulation a few more times to garner everything we can about the Galactic Coalition, we have enough now to know how to defeat them.’

  Nida stilled.

  Though she had not yet moved a centimetre, her muscles stiffened to the point of snapping.

  ‘We need to triple our efforts at finding the touched’s secrets. We must know how she accesses the entity. We must know how she controls it. We need to find out now.’

  Nida listened to the doctors and scientists speak, and she drew colder and colder with every word.

  ‘But what do you suggest?’ someone else asked. ‘She isn’t buying the simulation.’

  ‘Then change it. Find something, anything that will force her to show us what she knows.’

  She felt sick. Powerfully, powerfully sick. Nausea rose through her belly, snaking up to her throat.

  But she didn’t choke.

  She simply lay there and she listened.

  ‘Take her back to when she opened the time gate; force the simulation to recreate that scene so she shows us what she did,’ someone suggested.

  ‘It won’t work. We can’t sift through her memories. She is resisting. She will know something is wrong.’

  ‘Try,’ someone commanded in a shout that echoed through the room. ‘We don’t have time to fail. The event is almost upon us. Everything in our history leads to this point. I shouldn’t have to remind you what will happen to us all if we fail.’

  Silence descended through the room.

  ‘We are fighting for our very existence. And unless we unlock her secrets, we could fail.’

  She needed to know more. She had to find out as much as she could.

  Because she had to stop them.

  The few facts she now had scared the life out of her.

  The Vex wanted to find out how she accessed the entity. Why? So they could use it as a weapon? If so, against whom? Themselves or the Coalition?

  That possibility sent another wave of nausea cascading through her. Yet again, she just managed to stop herself from choking though.

  Was that it? Was that why the Vex were forcing Carson and her to undergo these visions? Is that why they were prying information on the Galactic Coalition’s battle capability from Carson’s mind, whilst scraping knowledge of the entity from hers?

  Her mind burnt with her questions. No matter what she did, she couldn’t put them out.

  And maybe she didn’t want to.

  Because, although she had no idea what was happening, she could guess how important it was.

  She was now fighting not just for her life and Carson’s, but for the very existence of the United Galactic Coalition as well.

  Her future.

  She had to do something.

  Now.

  Right now.

  There was no more time for questions, no more time to wait.

  For the longer she lay there, the more they found from Carson’s mind.

  But what could she do?

  As the Vex had already rightly pointed out, she was blocked off from the entity, drugged, and had no power of her own.

  . . . .

  The entity.

  She could feel only a trace of it. Only a hint. Only a reminder of what it could do.

  She held onto that hint, that suggestion, that scrap of a memory.

  She tried to force herself into it. Tried to bundle up her mind and body until she could squeeze it right into that distant feeling in her hand.

  She had travelled so far with it.

  From Remus 12, to Earth, then back to Remus 12. Even through time itself.

  She had grown accustomed to it.

  She had relied on it. And though, at times, she had become suspicious of it—she had questioned why it had led them to the resistance, and why it had forced her to remain with Varo—she now expunged that doubt from her mind.

  For it was all she had.

  ‘Hold on,’ one of the scientists said, their voice pressured, ‘I am picking up strange readings from the touched.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I . . . .’

  Nida blocked them out. The voices. Their presence.

  The room as a whole.

  She let it slip from her awareness as she focused everything she had on her left hand.

  On the entity.

  She tried to break down the wall that separated them.

  She tried to get through.

  She could feel it on the other side. Its power held back by some kind of insubstantial force.

  With everything she had, the worst recruit in 1000 years fought it.

  Never letting up, never giving up, and forcing everything she had into the task.

  Until finally she did it.

  Nida did it. She pushed through. She accessed the entity. She poured her mind into it, and as she did, it poured into her. The wall that had been separating them simply crumbled.

  And the power surged.

  She grabbed hold of it and pulled.

  She was going to break free. Even though it was dangerous to rely on the entity, to use its power, she had no choice.

  She had to break free and take Carson and the entity with her. She couldn’t remain here until the Vex used her as a weapon.

  So she opened up completely, the power coursing through her veins as she did.

  Her heart beat with it, her mind roared from it, and her body consumed it, until finally she lifted up.

  She cancelled out the effects of gravity as if it were nothing more than a mere fact, and something easily ignored.

  As she did, she floated above her bed until she hung there suspended in the air a few metres above it.

  She could hear the scientists screaming; she could see their frightened and fearful expressions.

  But she did not hesitate.

  She knew they could reinstate the wall at any moment, so she had to act now.

  She pointed to the ceiling in one strong move.

  She lifted her hand, and the room lifted with her.

  Everything from the beds to the equipment to the people.

  They all rose from their feet until they floated there.

  Though she felt the power coursing through her and knew she could tear through everything, she restrained herself.

  She would not kill them.

  She wasn’t like that.

  So she held onto her control as she pushed her hand out. Instantly the scientists and doctors tumbled towards the walls. She sent all the medical devices and technology tumbling behind them.

  She opened the door on the far side of the room with little more than a thought and a swipe of one extended finger.

  She sent the scientists spinning through it.

  Then she closed the door and allowed the remaining devices and objects in the room to heap against it, blocking it closed.

  It was incredible. The ease with which she manipulated the world around her. The power. The possibility. It went beyond anything she’d ever experienced.

  Though a part of her wanted to keep hold of it, wanted to revel in the strength it provided her, she did not.

  She forced herself to let go.

  To close h
er mind off to the entity, to force it backwards.

  And as she did, she descended back down to the ground until she fell lightly to her feet.

  She did not wobble. Though her legs were tired, she stood.

  Then she turned, just in time to bring her hands up and guide the still-floating Carson to the ground.

  As he rested beside her, the last power of the entity withdrew.

  As it did, she felt unbelievably cold, yet she still acted.

  She pushed down to her knees beside him, cupping his head in her hands. ‘Carson,’ she called, her voice echoing through the now empty room. ‘Carson,’ she screamed again, her voice croaking with the strain of what she’d just done.

  He just lay there, straight and still.

  But alive.

  He was still breathing.

  To confirm that fact, she locked a hand flat on his chest, feeling it move under her fingers.

  She could have knelt there like that forever, her palm and fingers moving gently as his chest rose and descended with every inhalation and exhalation.

  Because it confirmed he was still here. Still alive.

  The Vex hadn’t killed him.

  But they would, if given the chance.

  As if to confirm that fact, she snapped her head up to hear noises filter in from the corridor outside. They were very muffled and distant, but she could make them out.

  Despair leapt through her, chasing away any latent tingle of power that had remained from her use of the entity.

  Now she felt alone again, outnumbered, and out-gunned.

  She had to rouse Carson and get out of here.

  And she had to do it now.

  Though she wanted to force the entity to open a time gate again, she knew she had to wait.

  It just didn’t have the energy.

  It had to recoup.

  If she forced it now, it could corrupt. Though if she stayed in this time period much longer, she knew it would corrupt anyway.

  With a choked breath as she realised how impossible this situation was, she grabbed hold of Carson’s shoulders and tried to shake him awake. ‘Carson,’ she begged, ‘Carson.’

  He would not wake.

  Tears started to streak down her cheeks, hot, fast, and relentless, they just washed over her face, down her neck, and along her chin.

  Sobbing, she kept begging him to wake.

  Though she was in a hospital room of some description, and there was medical technology all around her, she didn’t know how to use any of it.

  Plus, she’d destroyed most of it when she’d heaped it against the wall.

  So all she had was her voice.

  She used it, over and over again as she whispered his name.

  As she begged him to come back.

  Chapter 12

  Carson Blake

  Something wasn’t right.

  Something wasn’t right.

  He kept telling himself that over and over again, but he couldn’t do anything about it.

  Whenever he tried to question what was happening to him, his head filled with fog, his body becoming weary with every breath.

  And try as he might, he couldn’t do a thing to fight it.

  He was a zombie, a robot; he did what he was told. What the Admiral ordered him to. He fought. He organised a battle plan to counter attack the new force moving against the United Galactic Coalition. But everything was so distant, every experience so disconnected.

  Yet somehow he held onto one fact.

  One name.

  Nida.

  Nida.

  He repeated it in his mind as if her name could set him free.

  Then it happened.

  The world around him broke.

  It actually broke.

  He’d been standing in his room, when all of a sudden the walls had fallen into blackness.

  He was dimly aware of being lifted into the air, of floating high above some object.

  But he couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t hear anything.

  He was locked inside his mind.

  He fought it.

  And he held on.

  Onto her name.

  Chapter 13

  Cadet Nida Harper

  He still wouldn’t rouse, and now she cupped his head in her hands, tears falling down her cheeks and striking his.

  He had to wake up.

  He had to.

  Because she couldn’t leave him here.

  They had to escape together, back to the past or the future, but far, far away from here.

  She needed him so she could do what she had to do next.

  Protect the United Galactic Coalition. To find out the Vex’s true secrets. And above all, to ensure the entity remained safe.

  ‘Come on,’ she begged as she pushed her fingers further behind his head, leaning down towards him and staring into his lifeless face.

  Then she felt it.

  Something behind his neck.

  Smooth, oblong, and lodged into the skin just below the base of his skull.

  Her eyes widened, and, without thinking, she pulled it out.

  For all she knew, it could be the only thing keeping him alive.

  It wasn’t.

  It was the only thing keeping him asleep.

  He sat up.

  No, he sprung forward as if he’d been released from a cannon.

  ‘Carson,’ she screamed.

  He turned.

  He sought out her gaze.

  . . . .

  He clearly couldn’t believe his eyes.

  He doubled backwards, grabbing one hand to his throat and the other to his mouth as he did.

  Then, as realisation made his eyes wide, he threw himself forward.

  Right at her.

  ‘Nida? Nida?’ he grabbed her shoulders, his strong grip locking her in place as if he was scared she would suddenly disappear.

  She nodded her head.

  He shook his. ‘Nida?’ he whispered, his expression compressed with a paradoxical mix of sorrow and joy.

  She nodded her head once more. This time vehemently. In fact, she could have snapped it considering how strongly she jerked it up and down in her attempts to convince him that yes, it was her.

  ‘I’m here, Carson, it’s me.’

  He shook his head once more. Then he just wrapped his arms around her.

  No words.

  No waiting.

  He pulled her in.

  In fact, he bought her so close, his cheek pressed hard into her own, his breath a continuous tickle over her neck.

  ‘God,’ he breathed, suddenly holding her tighter. ‘God,’ he repeated, holding her tighter again.

  ‘There’s no time to explain,’ she said, pulling herself away from him. Though she wanted to stay locked in his arms for all eternity, she couldn’t; they had to get out of here.

  ‘What’s happening? I . . . I thought you were dead,’ he choked, real tears streaking down his cheeks as his torso and arms shook.

  He held her even tighter, as if she were the only force keeping him from falling over.

  ‘Carson, we have to go. Quick. My distraction won’t last; they’ll send reinforcements. We have to leave.’

  ‘Nida,’ he wheezed, more tears welling in his eyes, ‘I thought you were dead,’ he repeated. ‘Dead.’

  For a moment, his raw emotion stilled her. But it was only a fraction of a second. For she knew how much time she didn’t have. She may have managed to push through to the entity to use its power, but her distraction wouldn’t last for long.

  The Vex of this time-period were impossibly strong. What they’d done to her and Carson evidenced that. They’d hooked them up to machines capable of manipulating their secrets right out of their minds.

  Though she knew how desperate this situation was, she finally listened to what he was saying. ‘What?’ her breath stilled, cold and hard in her chest. It just stuck there like a lump. ‘What do you mean dead?’

  ‘They told me you were dead,’ Carson
choked, shaking his head as he spoke. He was smiling at the same time as tears rolled relentlessly down his cheeks. With a shaking hand, he wiped his face, but didn’t stop shaking his head. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘They pretended I was dead?’ she repeated, realising the Vex had controlled Carson’s vision to manipulate him into thinking she’d died.

  It was a horrible thought, but she had to put it aside for now.

  ‘Carson, I’m fine. I’m alive,’ she said, pressing a hand into his chest as she did.

  It felt warm.

  So warm.

  All at once she remembered cuddling up to him on that couch—but that hadn’t been real; it had been part of the simulation.

  This, this was real.

  In a flood, she felt all of the reassurance she had thought she’d felt in the vision.

  He collapsed a hand onto her back, his palm flat against her top.

  She was no longer wearing the clothes she’d come across in that farmhouse, and neither was Carson. Neither did they look like Vex any more; their complete disguises had been removed.

  They were both in long white tunics that had a bare resemblance to hospital gowns from Earth.

  As his hand weighed into the fabric of her top, he suddenly shifted back as an echoing boom filtered in from the corridor outside.

  For the first time his expression tightened with something other than overwhelming relief.

  Terror.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ he turned towards the opposite wall where all of the medical equipment lay in a great big heap.

  ‘They’re trying to get through,’ she breathed. ‘Come on, we have to get out of here.’

  Just as soon as she suggested it, she realised it was impossible.

  . . . .

  How was she meant to get out of here?

  There was only one door, and there were no windows.

  They were stuck inside.

  Carson appeared to catch up to that same fact as he turned to her, his eyes wide with obvious terror. ‘Nida,’ he said in a shaking voice. ‘What the hell do we do?’

  . . . .

  He was asking her what to do.

  She was the worst recruit in 1000 years, yet the best recruit was asking her for advice. No, not just for advice, for help.

  Though it felt incredible, now really wasn’t the time to look back on how far she’d come.

  She could write Commander Sharpe an ‘I told you so’ letter later.

  Right now, she had to figure out how to get out of here before the Vex got in.