The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (19 page)

Nick swung his
pistol into the doorway, illuminating the room in front of him. He stepped in
slowly, the clank of his boots against the tri-tanium floor barely audible over
his pounding heart. As he crossed the threshold, he reached over with his free
hand to flip on the light, all the while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the
room ahead. A flurry of sparks flew from a wall-mounted panel as the lights
flickered on. Scared into action, Nick flinched and reflexively fired off a
round from his pistol. The bolt of plasma ricocheted around the room, nearly
taking him out before dissipating. With some fancy footwork he managed to dodge
his own weapons-fire. 

“Damn, I’m too
jumpy.  Hold it together, man.”

He looked around
again. At least the small room appeared to be empty.

Random sparks
popped and hissed from the open panel as Nick approached. A quick glance
confirmed that all of the internal circuits were fried, apparently by a couple
of well placed plasma blasts. Clearly sabotage. Nick swung the door to the
panel closed, looking for evidence of what the damaged circuits were used for.
He was confronted with a row of alien letters printed across the cover.
Damn,
I’ll have to go get Karg to read it.

Suddenly the
word ‘Primary’ appeared, floating just below the alien letters on the door
panel. Startled, Nick jumped back. The word seemed to hover in mid-air, just in
front of the panel.

“What the…?”
Nick blinked several times, but the word still hung there in front of him. He
squeezed his eyes shut, but he could still see the word. He deliberately held
his eyes closed for a moment.  Strangely, the apparition of the word
slowly faded away.

Oh my God,
what’s happening to me?
What’s wrong with my eyes?

Nick opened his
eyes again, unsure of what to expect. He stared down at the base of the wall in
front of him. Nothing. No mysterious visions of words. His gaze was drawn back
to the panel. The words ‘Primary Weapons’ appeared before his eyes, floating
right beneath the alien writing on the door. Like a ghostly phantom, the
translucent letters hung there in the void between him and the panel.

“Shit! No way.”

Nick spun around
and looked at the panel on the facing wall. The words ‘Primary Weapons’ were
replaced by the words ‘Plasma Cooling.’ Nick reached out to touch the panel.
The ghostly red letters were clearly visible on the back of his hand. He held
his hand in front of his face. Still the words remained, but then faded from
sight again.

Nick tapped his
com-badge. “Karg? I’m seeing words…
in
my eyes. Is this normal? It’s the
nanites, right? Tell me it’s the nanites.”

Karg replied
through the com-link. “Yes, that’s normal. It always takes longer for the
written translation system to kick in.”

Nick sighed with
relief. “You could have warned me about that. Don’t you think?”

“Sorry, it’s not
often we run across someone who hasn’t had the translators since birth. They
interpret the signals from your optical nerve and then splice in the translated
words. Your brain sees the real image and the overlaid translation from the
nanites at the same time. Why yours took
this
long to activate is beyond
me. Must be because you’re so…alien. Now, would you quit
freking
around
and get me the hetek out of here!”

“Karg, the
primary weapon circuits have been destroyed. Tell me that doesn’t mean what I
think.”

“It means our
weapons are down, and the Dragorans know our location. All the more reason to
get
me the frek out of here!”

The sound of
Karg pounding on the door to the isolation room rang out loudly through the
com-badge, causing Nick to throw his hands over his ears. “Okay, I’m on my
way.” Nick turned to leave when he was stopped by a familiar sound echoing
through the room. The low, gear-grinding noise could only be one thing. “Karg,
the hangar doors are opening! I have to get back to Arya!”

“Just let me out
first!” Karg roared.

“No time. Sit
tight, I’ll be back.” Nick ran down the corridor toward the hangar. He slid
around the corner just in time to see the bay’s access door closing. Without hesitation,
he lunged forward and hurled himself head-first through the air, barely
squeezing past the door as it shut. He tucked and tumbled once, coming back
upright on one knee, eyes swiveling to take in the bay as quickly as possible.
A quick survey revealed no sign of anyone.

Nick’s eyes
scanned the landscape of small crates, spacecraft, and equipment, but no Arya.

“Where the hell
are you?” he whispered under his breath.   

It wasn’t smart
to give away his presence, but he saw no other choice but to call out for her.
“Arya?”

No response to
his shout. Only the faint echo of his voice reflecting off the curved ceiling
of the bay. Still worried about being shot by a spy, Nick cautiously crept
around the crates and then, not wanting to be out in the open for too long,
ducked behind a transport parked nearby. Peering over the nose of the craft, he
saw a figure lying on the floor near the module.

“Arya!” he
instinctively called out her name.

I knew I
shouldn’t have left her alone. That slimy bastard.
“If she’s dead I’ll—”

Arya’s head
moved slightly, and she let out a faint moan.

Nick glanced
quickly around the bay and then sprinted over to Arya, keeping his head down as
he ran. She lay face down, her body splayed out in an awkward position on the
floor. One hand was above her head and the other pinned under her. The position
looked painful, but at least he saw no sign of blood.

“Arya?” He
reached down and placed his left hand on her shoulder, gently turning her over.
“Come on…be okay.” 

As her limp body
rolled over onto the floor, her mottled green hair fell away from her face. She
looked so lifeless. There was no sign of movement, no sign of breathing.
Would
CPR work on her alien physiology?
He was uncertain, but what else could he
do?

“Arya!” He
insistently patted her cheek. “Dammit, please be alive.”

Suddenly, he
felt the pressure of a plasma pistol barrel against his throat.

Arya opened her
big, green cat-like eyes. “Don’t move,” she commanded calmly, her eyes devoid
of emotion and her body obviously devoid of harm. “You pathetic creature.
You’re such a weak species.” Arya glared hard into his eyes, as if she were
looking right through him. “Hand me your weapon.
Carefully
.”

Nick frowned at
her. “Arya?” He hoped this was all some sort of a joke, like the ones Karg and
Arya had been playing on him since day one, but his gut told him otherwise. The
look in her eyes was treacherous and hateful.

“Now!” Arya
screamed. “Give me your gun! Now!”

The blood froze
in Nick’s veins. Her voice was so different. Everything about her was
different. This was not the Arya he’d come to know over the past months.

He glanced down
at the pistol she held firmly pressed under his chin then slowly reached for
his weapon. Taking it gently at the top with just two fingers, he carefully
pulled the pistol from its holster and held it high enough for Arya to grab it
from him.

Arya nudged his
neck with the barrel, so hard that he felt like his Adam’s apple would crack.
She definitely meant business. “Now, get up!” she commanded.

Nick slowly rose
off his knees. The business end of her pistol never left his throat as she
stood with him. The cold of the metal against his neck was nothing compared to
the dark, icy-cold depths of the pupils that were staring back at him.

Arya backed
toward the module and threw Nick’s pistol into the cockpit. “I have waited so
long for this prize.” She ran her hand along the skin of the module, caressing
it softly. “It’s a pity there’s not enough room to take you with me. But no
matter, soon you’ll be safely aboard the Dreadnought. It should be arriving any
time now,” she said with satisfaction.

Karg’s muffled
voice, mixed with the echo of pounding fists, emanated from one of the sealed
access doors. “Nick! Arya! Are you in there?”

“They’ll never
get to me in time,” Arya boasted. “I’ve disabled the door controls.”

Her evil gaze
never left his face. Strange, how scary her cat-eyes could look. She looked
like a completely different person. “Because of you, your friends will have a
few more chronits to live. The Dragorans will make sure they have you in their
custody before they blow this ship, and everyone left on board, into little
pieces.”

She seemed to
enjoy Nick’s discomfort. “Oh, come on now. You didn’t really think this
pitiful
band of Resistance fighters was any match for the great Dragoran Empire, did
you?” she said with an arrogant smirk.

The rustle of an
environmental suit suddenly drew Arya’s attention. One of her ears pivoted
around to pinpoint the noise. From behind her, a Meth crewmember that had apparently
been trapped in the hangar, rushed toward her wielding a large wrench. Without
ever taking her eyes off Nick, Arya swung her pistol around and fired at the
worker. With her lightning quick reflexes, Arya had stopped the Meth’s attack
with a single point-blank plasma blast to the face. A flame erupted from the
crewmember’s facemask, blazing like a lit torch. He immediately collapsed
backward onto the deck. Quite dead. The methane in his suit, combined with the
oxygen in the hangar, fueled the flames for a few more seconds, until a final
puff of smoke rose from the ruptured facemask of the unfortunate Coranii.

Stunned by her
malicious act, Nick looked from the Meth worker to Arya. As he stared
horrified, goose bumps ran up his arms, culminating in a sudden intense shiver
that raced back down his spine. Clearly, the
thing
standing in front of
him wasn’t Arya anymore. This was a vicious, cold-blooded killer. “What have
they done to you?” Nick’s voice cracked in pity and fear.

Arya never even
glanced down at the dead crewmember. Instead, she remained emotionless and
intently focused on Nick. She gave Nick a grin so sinister it made the hair on
the back of his neck stand straight up and reminded him that he was the prize
pig at this Dragoran fair, and she intended to bring him to the barbecue.

“What have
they
done? You mean what have
I
done?” she hissed. “Rest assured the Arya you
knew is still here, pounding to get out. Screaming to be heard.” She tapped her
temple several times with her fingertip. “Locked in here, in the prison of her
brain.” A cold, soulless laugh floated from her lips. “I finally put her where
she belongs. Now, she can watch my greatness from a front row seat in her
mind.”

Nick stared so
hard at the stranger in front of him that he didn’t blink until a tear ran down
his face, surprising him by its presence. There was no sign of the Arya he once
knew. She was dead and gone, just as sure as if she had been hit by a plasma
blast to the head.

The monster that
was once Arya winced in disgust. “All this time I was forced to sit back and
watch you fools going about your pathetic little lives. And you, you’re the
most pathetic one of the bunch. Always complaining about how unfair everything
is.” Arya cringed. “What she saw in you, I cannot fathom.”

Without taking
her watchful eyes off Nick, she reached into the module’s cockpit and flipped
on the systems. She obviously didn’t think he was so pathetic that she could
trust him.

Her eyes
narrowed. “I was forced to wait patiently for the right moment, staying hidden
in the recesses of Arya’s pitiful, narrow-minded brain. The things that go on
in there make me sick. Only now I’m in control, and that wench is nothing more
than a sergut gnat buzzing in my ear, soon to be no more. But not before she’s
forced to witness her failure firsthand. It’s ironic that she will be the
demise of everything she fought for. Everything she held dear.”

Tears burned
Nick’s eyes. The light in Arya’s eyes had vanished, replaced by a psychopath’s
cold stare.

Nick glanced
around the bay. “Where’s your accomplice? That bastard Sirok? Or are you
throwing him under the bus, too?”

“Sirok? That
fool is not my accomplice. The coward probably ran and hid as soon as he found
out Argos had been killed.”

Nick was
puzzled. “I thought…the slime found on Argos—”

“Sirok didn’t
kill Argos, you idiot! I killed Argos.”

Arya suddenly
jerked her head back. Her eyes twitched oddly, and her body convulsed as if she
were in terrible pain. Nick stared at her, waiting for an opportunity to
escape, but uncertain as hell about what was going on right in front of his
eyes. 

A glint of fear
showed in her eyes and then her shoulders dropped suddenly. “Argos! No! Argos,”
she cried. Tears ran down her face as she looked back at Nick. “Nick? Nick,
help me. Please…help me.”

“Arya?” Nick was
stunned by her abrupt personality change but still leery.  He couldn’t
trust her.  Not yet.  Whoever was doing the talking now would have to
prove she was the real Arya before he let his guard down.

Arya’s painful
struggle to regain control of her body was evident in every inch of her
distorted face. She was fighting with everything she had to stay in control.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop it. Please h―”

Nick took a step
toward her, hoping to compel her to fight the monster in her head. “Don’t let
it win. You can fight it, Arya. Look at me! Stay focused on me. And fight the
damn thing in your head!”

Nick’s movement
snapped the alternate personality within Arya’s brain back into action. Its
fail-safe, self preservation mode had activated, and it seized control of her
once again. Arya’s body flinched once, and then she raised her weapon up to
Nick in a silent warning for him to stop his advance. Coldness fell over her
eyes again as her spine straightened. A dark, merciless abyss was all that
remained within her pupils. The artificial spy personality had won. She stared
down the barrel of her pistol at Nick and smiled a cold, murderous smile.