“Say what now … Lucinda, I’m … he forced you?”
“When he was on top of me, entering me, I looked into his eyes and tried to plead with him to stop. But I didn’t recognise Samuel in those eyes, there was someone else in there. Samuel was gone and it wasn’t him that forced me, it was some kind of monster ...”
“Anyway, after he had his way, he rolled off to the side and I curled myself into a protective little ball. It was truly painful what he did to me. As I rolled away from Samuel though, I must have rolled into Smith’s body and I was forced to look into his eyes. But I didn’t find a cold dead stare, for he was not dead.”
“He blinked his eyes, but made no sound.”
“Then he reached out and touched me, lightly on the chin.”
“It did something, the touch. I don’t know how he did it but I saw something as though I was seeing it through his eyes. He showed me something that was going to happen in the future, he told me ...”
“What?”
“He told me I would have to endure, that I would have to stay strong until he came back. He said now was a time to endure, but before I even had time to process what Smith was trying to communicate to me beyond that, Samuel intervened. He realised what was happening, shuffled over the top of me and quickly slammed the blade of the knife right through Smith’s skull.”
“Oh Jesus Lucinda.”
“After that, he took me and Smith’s body back to Sydney. Samuel covered the body in chains and threw it into the ocean, then he sat me down to tell me who he really was.”
“He told me his name was Fahwad and he had taken over Samuel’s mind. He told me he wanted to get out of his tomb and become one again, to become whole. Any freedom I might’ve had before that was gone, he was in control from then on. Through Samuel, he engineered everything that took place thereafter.”
“Whoa.” Marion just realised.
“What?”
“The last entry in the logs ...”
“What?”
“The last entry, the last thing that you did before ...”
“What?”
“You brought him back to life? The monster …”
“Yep ... that’s him.”
“Thirty years.”
“Yeah, took longer than I thought.”
“Who … or what is he?”
“I don’t know, but he’s very dangerous and very powerful. He was the driving force behind me all these years, forcing me, just as he did the very first night.”
“He has all that energy inside him?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s insane! We’re talking millions of lives. How did he survive that?”
“Well, they were his to begin with.”
“Jeepers, this gives me the creeps.”
“I’m sorry Marion, I never meant to mislead you, I just couldn’t say anything, he would’ve known.” She cast her eyes downwards, a brief silence ensuing between the two.
“So where to from here?”
“Well, it’s up to you Marion. We have an opportunity here.”
“We had an opportunity last time, I wish we’d taken it back then but, I understand now why you didn’t. I’m sorry that happened to you Lucinda, I wish I could have been there for you more as a friend.”
“You were. I wasn’t, I couldn’t and for a long time I refused to believe anything even happened. But when Catlin came back into the picture it reminded me … and all that pain came flooding back in.”
“It’s ok now Lucinda, you have a beautiful daughter.”
“From a terrible place.”
“Well now I know where she came from and more importantly who she came from, I understand how Samuel used her to motivate you. It might also explain a few of the anomalies I’ve witnessed with her over the years.”
“It doesn’t matter now Marion. I only have one thing left to do.”
“I? I thought you said you needed my help.”
“I do. I can’t do this alone. Someone has to be the operator and the other has to …”
“How did you find this place anyway?”
“That’s another long story, let’s just say I stumbled across it.”
“Lucinda!”
“Sorry,” she apologised, sighing heavily. “Remember when we were digging out a section a few years ago to make more room for the staff quarters?”
“Yes, apparently the dig team hit a rock fissure and couldn’t proceed.”
“Well they did find a rock fissure, the foreman called me in to show me the rock and told me they couldn’t dig any further. So, I told them to close it up, they sealed it over and we went and dug in another area.”
“Right, and then?”
“And whilst I was there one day, I heard a voice. It was a voice in my head. I knew it was real but I didn’t say anything to anyone, I just ignored it. It stayed with me for days and the only respite I got was when I left the facility to go upstairs.”
“For a while I thought that I’d gone crazy, until I realised it only happened when I was close to the area of the extension.”
“Is that when you realised it was a thread?”
“Well no, not really. But I knew there was something behind the rock. Problem was I couldn’t exactly dig out a tunnel through solid rock to find the voice in my head, could I?”
“Holy brown potato. When was this?”
“Remember the first time you called me out for a thread alteration?”
“When you gave yourself those extra lives? You did it then?” Marion asked.
“I had too, she told me too.”
“Who did?”
“She calls herself Sera.”
“Huh?” Marion replied, not understanding.
“The voice, the thread, it’s a she.”
“You gave it a name?” she said, starting to wonder on Lucinda’s sanity.
“It told me … she told me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The thread’s Marion, they’re not what we thought they were.”
Marion up until this time had never really been in the know, never been told the inner secrets and only told what Lucinda and Samuel had needed to. She didn’t realise how deep things went, but the more Lucinda revealed the more she came to understand the magnitude of what they were dealing with.
“You’ve known all this time and you’ve never told me, all this stuff I never knew and you’re only telling me now …” She wasn’t so much frustrated as she was confused. “I don’t understand how you could’ve kept quiet about any of it, or at most why you didn’t take me aside at least once and explain things to me? Another thread! Shit Lucinda, I can barely even conceive of one.”
“I couldn’t even think something half the time without him knowing, I don’t know how, but he knew almost everything that I did. Sometimes before I even knew I was going to do it. I was too afraid I would tell someone and he would find out.”
“Who?”
“The thread is a being, a man, who calls himself Fahwad, that’s what Destiny is. He was the voice inside Samuel’s head, the voice that drove him for thirty years to accomplish what we are seeing today.”
“Ok, this is all very over my head.”
“Come with me, I need to show you this.” Lucinda got up slowly from the chair and hobbled into the small section of the other room, where the blue light was emanating from.
“The light, touch it.”
“Do what now?”
“Touch it Marion and see for yourself.”
Marion hesitated, “I don’t like …”
“This is the only way, it’s perfectly safe, nothing bad will happen to you.”
“And I’m just supposed to trust you on that one?”
“You don’t have a choice, do you?”
&
nbsp; “I can walk away …” Marion threatened. “There’s always a choice.”
Lucinda, in reply, stuck her hand out toward the blue light, “It’s safe.” she said, her hand disappearing into the light. “Come, please.”
Marion paused another second before deciding no harm was going to come of it and she held up her hand, albeit with both eyes closed. Tentatively she moved it forward, slowly towards the light.
Lucinda, impatient, grabbed the outstretched hand and moved it hastily forward on behalf of Marion until it too disappeared into the light.
“Marion, meet Sera.”
- -
Catlin
Catlin sat there, dawdling on the side of the road and playing with fallen sticks laying by her feet. She’d find a small stick and break it until it curled upon itself, when it eventually snapped, she threw it away and found another, repeating the process over and over.
She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t moved, she supposed she didn’t feel like it and preferred to linger in the dirt by the side of the road instead, truth was, she wasn’t sure what to do next.
Something about the man she’d just met made her feel anxious and she was certain he did it deliberately, men like him were used to treating women as play things. She’d experienced them in the past and quickly grew to dislike their egotistical disposition towards life. Everything they did was fake or for some self-indulgent reason, so she’d kept them at a distance. She didn’t play their games.
Ursula on the other hand was a baby when it came to men, she’d probably only seen a handful of them from the facility and had likely never had to deal with overly charming men before. Catlin chastised herself for not being more demanding of Ursula and protecting her from the man.
She sat in the dirt for a full hour before deciding to get back up, and when she did she noticed that it had gotten dark very quickly.
Lost in her own thoughts she hadn’t realised how late it was, night was falling and dark clouds appeared above her. She looked up and thought it funny the darkness mirrored her emotions, the smirk on her face was quickly replaced though as rain started to fall.
She looked about for shelter and her heart nearly stopped when she looked up the length of the building and noticed the lights were on in the apartment block they’d just been in. She gazed up and tried to fathom whether it was from the apartment she’d just come from but couldn’t be sure.
Were the lights on when we went in? Did someone switch them on?
She hurried quickly into the lobby and made her way rapidly up to the apartment, somewhere in her mind hoping Ursula and the pretty man had come back for her, maybe they even had some dinner ready. Maybe they would welcome her back in with open arms.
But as she arrived she was let down as nobody was there, nor were there any lights on.
Strange, she thought to herself, she could have sworn the lights were on.
Thinking it most likely was another apartment, Catlin stole a look out the kitchen window and was surprised to see another apartment, a floor below hers, with its lights on.
That’s the culprit!
Quickly she back tracked, but instead of jumping over the hole, this time she slid down the side of it to get to the floor beneath. Hitting the next floor, the first thing she noticed was blood, but was surprised to find no bodies. She jumped off the pile of rubble wondering what could have caused such a bloody mess.
Disregarding it, she moved along the hallway and noticed an apartment door at the end open, with lights on. She paced slowly now, sticking her head through the door to get a peek.
But there was nothing to glimpse, the apartment was empty.
Satisfied it was safe to enter, Catlin surveyed the area and entered one of the bedrooms hoping to find something. She noticed a set of bars in one of the bedrooms that strangely had a zip line setup to the building opposite. Thinking a zip line odd, she moved over to investigate and found a broken line of the floor and a new one attached to the bars.
What the hell is this doing here? Two cables, one severed line and another connected to the building on the other side?
Intrigued, she moved over to the zip line, grabbed a hold of it and put her weight on to test. This must be how they escaped, she thought to herself. But why the second torn cable on the ground? Maybe I should go across and find out …
She looked down its length and contemplated using it but decided it was in her best interests to take the long way around, darkness steering her clear of it.
She abandoned the apartment and hit the lobby, running into someone unexpectedly just as she was leaving the lift. Such was her surprise she jumped involuntarily and let out a little whelp. She’d only been in Melbourne for a couple of days but seeing people had become a bit of a scarcity and it surprised her.
The man in question though, paid her no heed and brushed past her in a seemingly impatient manner, carrying some large object. He didn’t deign to look up, so she ignored him and moved on.
She took her time getting up to the next apartment and found nothing of interest again, it was a little dejecting as she hoped it may have led to something, something that would put her back on target. Both rooms seemed to only be used for the zip-line, except this one had fresh cable dispensers on the floor, hundreds of feet of it, spooled around a plastic drum.
Funny, she thought, what were fresh cables doing here? She solemnly made her way back to the ground floor, feeling more than a little dejected.
When the elevator door opened she realised she had nowhere to go, nowhere to be and nothing to follow up on. She stood motionless inside the elevator, watching as the doors opened and then closed whilst her gaze remained transfixed on the floor.
Any evidence that might’ve helped her move along was gone, she was lost, just as she had been back at the Destiny facility. She thought of her trusty axe, back in the facility and wondered if it would have been any use to her now, she smiled when she looked at the windows in the lobby. It would have made a nice splash of glass.
Resigned, she lay down on her back and looking up, wondered where she was to go from here. A part of her felt she should’ve just gone with Ursula and the pretty man, even if she detested him it was better than being alone. But then she realised how stupid Ursula had been since they’d left the mountain, always making complaints or excuses.
When it came to Catlin, she felt she was a woman who could be relied on to get things done. She’d been a volunteer in various international endeavours, she knew how to handle herself in grave situations and prided herself on her ability to stay focused on the task at hand.
Ursula had almost lost herself, her mother was fine, was going to be fine and they needed to get away. But all Ursula could do was complain. Stuff her, she thought. What does she know anyway?
Catlin tried to remain positive as she lay there, but negativity seemed to creep in with every passing thought. And given the events of the past few months she understood why, things just didn’t seem to be going her way anymore.
As she sat thinking in the elevator, the electric doors to the lobby opened and she instinctively looked over in reaction and noticed the same man from earlier. He entered and made his way straight towards her in the elevator.
When he noticed Catlin lying there in the elevator he stopped, did a double take and addressed her, “Ms ...!” he clicked his fingers. “I remember you!”
“Huh?” she leaned forward, sitting up for a closer look, her eyes flashing as she recognised him, “You ...” she said pointing at him. “I’ve seen you before too ...”
She sat herself up and looked into his eyes, noticing his pupils flecked in a straight manner, much like that of a snake and realised where she’d seen him before.
“Catlin,” he smiled at her.
“Yeah,” she said, with a look of incredulity, a slight smile beginning to creep up on her face. She recognised t
he man from Destiny, though he looked a little younger than she remembered.
“You are the daughter hey?”
Catlin rolled her eyes, “What …?” She huffed, standing herself up in the elevator and trying to appear casual.
“What you doing sitting down there, hey?”
“Oh, nothing, just thinking is all,” she stuck her hand out awkwardly. “I’m Catlin.”
“Sousa ... but you probably know me by another name I would say …?” he said, extending his hand to meet hers.
“Oooh yes! It was …” she stuttered for a moment, thankful she’d found a friend but also because she was struggling to remember his name.
“Ahhh!” she shouted as she remembered it. “The Viper ... you are the Viper!”
“Ja, sure, Viper.”
“Wait a minute, did you say your name was Sousa?”
“Yeah why?”
“I know someone who’s looking for you.”
“Is something wrong with you, hey?”
“I’m fine,” Catlin responded, instinctively wiping at her cheeks, clearing any tears that may have been there.
“Looks like you have something in your eye then huh?”
“I have not!”
“Well, can’t say I blame you anyways.”
“Why?”
“You’re Catlin, which means …”
“What?”
“You know I heard on da TV they placed you in charge of the facility a short time after I left, wow, and then to top it off, they take it off you and call you a criminal. Bloody crazy man!”
“Yeah, kinda sucks. I thought I was going to get a chance to do some real good.”
“Ja, well the world sucks hey, but as I say … screw ‘em!”
“Yeah, I dunno, I think it was a great opportunity to do something meaningful. I mean, I was just trying to get used to it and getting a feel for the job before, well …”
“Ja, I heard it didn’t end so well and dem government troops are all over the place.”
Recalling Destiny Page 59