Ouroboros 3: Repeat (7 page)

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.

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.

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.

Because if they did, there’d be no escaping again. She’d gotten lucky last time. Through some combination of grit and fortune, she’d broken through whatever force had kept the entity separated from her.

The Vex wouldn’t make the same mistake twice though. She knew how desperate they were; everything that had happened to both her and Carson ever since they’d arrived in this cursed time-period evidenced that.

The Vex were sufficiently motivated and powerful to do what they wanted.

‘
God, what do we do?’ Carson asked again, his desperation obvious.

She had no idea what they’d done to him in his simulation, other than the fact they’d made him believe she was dead.

Yet whatever it had been, Carson now seemed weak. Unsure of himself. They’d sapped his resolve.

Despite how dire the situation was, she took a moment to consider that fact.

Did she really mean that much to him? Could the prospect that she’d died unsettle him so much emotionally that it would underwrite his drive, his skills, and his fire?

She didn’t have the time to ask, and neither did she dare.

Instead, she took a breath. A short, harsh breath.

And she decided what to do.

‘We wait,’ she announced.

‘
What?
’

‘
We wait until the entity has recharged, then I’m going to use it to open a time gate.’

‘
Nida, you can’t do that. The entity . . . you can’t tire it out. You can’t use its power . . . wait, hold on,’ he trailed off as she stared at her with a mix of astonishment and worry, ‘what do you mean you’re going to use it to open a time gate? The entity only acts when it wants to.’

She took a brief moment to consider him in silence. She thought of not telling him, of
keeping the fact she could access the entity to herself. Yet as soon as that thought arose in her mind, she dismissed it.

She trusted him.

Implicitly.

In fact, she trusted him more than anyone she had ever trusted.

‘There’s a lot to explain, but just trust me—I can access the entity. I can force it to open a time gate. That’s what I did in the past . . . and that’s how we got here,’ she added with a wince. ‘I can’t control where the time gate takes us, but I can use it to get away from here,’ she turned to face the opposite wall. It shook under some powerful barrage.

‘
I . . . ,’ Carson began. But he did not finish his words. Instead he just stood there and considered her, then the wall behind them. ‘I trust you,’ he finally added.

She smiled at that.

In that moment, it didn’t matter that a whole hoard of angry futuristic Vex were trying to storm the room to get to them. All that mattered was his sentiment.

She wanted to reach out her hand to take his.

But she hesitated.

He didn’t.

He stepped in, right beside her, and clasped his palm close to hers. Their fingers interlacing, they shared a silence.

A long, drawn out, heavy silence punctuated only by the sounds of the Vex trying to get through.

‘How long will it take?’ he whispered eventually.

She knew exactly what he spoke of. The entity. He needed to know how long it would take until it recharged enough to open another gate.

He no longer questioned whether it would be safe; neither did he doubt she could do it.

He didn’t point out she could corrupt it.

He just trusted her.

And she trusted herself. She trusted that intuition that told her she could open another gate without corrupting the entity. She also trusted her judgement when it came to this time-period. It was of utmost importance that she get the entity out of here before the Vex could use it as a weapon.

‘Nida?’ he prompted slowly.

‘
I don’t know,’ she finally realised.

It was a horrible, fraught conclusion, but she couldn’t hide from it. Though she could
still feel the entity within, and she was now more attuned to it than she had ever been before, she could not tell how long it would take.

‘
Nida,’ Carson began.

He didn’t get the opportunity to finish his sentence. At that exact moment, something exploded in the corridor outside. It sent the medical equipment shaking to the floor and scattering out in all directions.

But while it fell away, the door could not be opened. Because she’d warped it. She’d completely destroyed it when she’d used the entity to blast free.

Her eyes drew wide as another explosion rocked her to the core.

All she could do was stand there and stare.

And hold onto him.

‘Nida?’ he tried to grasp hold of her attention once more.

Finally, she turned to him.

‘Whatever happens,’ he began.

Again, he didn’t get the opportunity to finish his sentence.

Instead, the wall before them started to glow. At first, it was only a single point about a few centimetres across. A bright red dot glowing the colour of sparking fire.

Then it grew.

Quickly, until it covered a whole section of the wall.

‘
They’re burning their way in,’ Carson acknowledged with a scream. He barrelled into her, pulling her back towards the other side of the room.

She let him pull her back. Yet it was pointless. Whether they stood against the far wall or in the centre of the room was irrelevant; as soon as the Vex made it through, Carson and Nida were done for.

 . . . .

Yet she didn’t give up.

She held onto this new-found resolve. The same resolve breaking through the Vex’s illusions had given her.

She also centred her mind.

She opened up her energy. She tried to connect with the entity. Tried to convey to it how desperate this situation had become.

She could feel it leap up through her; rising from her palm into her wrist, then high into her arm and chest.

It felt like electricity climbing her flesh and bones.

She didn’t fight the sensation though.

She held onto it and followed where it would lead.

‘
Nida,’ Carson called, pulling her backwards again. ‘Christ . . . I just . . . god, what do we do?’