Proud Infinity (VayneLine)

by E. A. Szabelski

  Her dark green hair came a bit long around the face, leaving just enough room for bright blue eyes to look through like a window as the hair hung softly around the cheeks, leaving her Strive to be completely unobstructed. She had a playfulness to her with the sly smile on, vastly out of position at a dump like this bar. Her pink bow spoke to her presumed confidence, and her tight black bodysuit she wore left nothing to imagination.

  ‘Ahh, the wonders of genetic engineering, eh? Damn right.’ I conversed with myself.

  I was staring at the shadows and shines on her adequate chest when she asked, “Enjoyable?” before softly laughing. “I hoped it would be.”

  “Damn, sorry.” I closed my eyes and shook my head. I opened my eyes back up and concentrated on looking at her eyes, which was actually rather hard. “Look, this is kind of a weird question, but…do we know each other?”

  “That is an interesting question. It is tough to tell.”

  “Uh…it is? Why?” I asked.

  “If you do not yet know, perhaps we do not yet know each other?” Her tone indicted she was asking a question, but I wasn’t sure. I mean what kind of question is that?

  She was as mysterious as her appearance. Her eyes had a deep level of intelligence to them, as we stared at each other I felt like she knew far more than she let on.

  “Is that a question for me?” I asked. “I don’t remember you, but it kind of seems like I know you.”

  “Hey.” A new voice, I turned and it was the bartender. He had my drink I didn’t really want. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, why?” I pulled out my credcard and he swiped it, deducting a few valuable credits. I hoped it wasn’t the difference from getting a ticket off-world and not.

  “Well you came in here before and ran off, now you are sitting at an empty table talking to the wall.”

  My eyes flashed back to the girl, half expecting she would not be there and that I was going crazy. Yeah, lock up ol’ Trego! Ever since he lost his job he has just been on a downward spiral. Next thing you know, he will be shooting people saying this was all a dream.

  But she indeed was there, and perhaps that was even worse for my case of going crazy. She smiled and nodded once.

  “Uh, yeah, I’m fine. Just still a bit messed up over losing my job and all.”

  “Join the crowd,” the bartender said before he left.

  I leaned forward to the girl. “Okay, what the hell is going on?”

  “That is also a tough question with many layers of complexity.” I felt like she was playing me for the fool.

  I balled my fist in anger; her coyness was pissing me off. “Look, I get it. My questions are ‘tough’ but start talking. Why do these guys pretend you aren’t here, and why did I dream a scenario close to this, except I died and didn’t talk to you in it?!” As soon as I released the torrent, I regretted it. I didn’t even know this girl, and now suddenly I was acting like some crazy person.

  I was glad she didn’t make an issue of it. “Maybe you were supposed to talk to me then?” she asked innocently.

  “It was a dream, you can’t control those things. Maybe that’s why I am talking to you now, because of that vision.” I was far more open with her than I normally ever would be, but the intensity of that dream kept me going.

  “Vision? Is that what you thought it was?” she asked, her eyebrows went up in a ‘what the hell are you talking about’ kind of look, kind of like everyone else had in the room. For a moment I considered that maybe I was part of some reality show, or some military test to see if I would break. No, I was tougher than this. At the very least I had to see what she would say.

  I gripped my fist hard, gritting my teeth. This stupid bitch, I didn’t do good with coquette behavior. I wanted to slap her. For a moment I thought about threatening her with my pistol, but I left that idea on the table, so to say. For now I’ll just try a different approach.

  I sighed and tried again. I wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery. “Do you have a name?”

  “I am a bit unsure on your standards, but isn’t it correct to give your name first?”

  I frowned a bit; she was not making this easy. “It’s Trego.”

  “I know,” she stated flatly.

  I raised an eyebrow. “You already know? Why would you even ask then?” I realized that everyone in the bar had stopped talking and was looking at me. I looked back at them, wondering how long they were going to keep their act up, and they went back to small talk. Yes I get it; I’m probably part of a comedy show or some psyche experiment, go back to drowning your sorrows.

  “Yes, I know your name,” she said.

  “Uh, well okay, so what is yours? Can you give it to me now?” What was the point of her little show if she already knew mine?

  “Proud,” she stated the single word and nothing more.

  “ ‘Proud’? That’s your name?”

  She turned her head slightly, looked just a bit concerned. “Is it not sufficient for a name? Do I require something more? I had hoped everything was sufficient, tailored specifically, in fact. Does it need to be changed? I’m sorry, this is my first time. This is all new to me as well.”

  “No, if that’s your name, it’s fine. I just wasn’t sure I heard you right.”

  Her tone of voice changed slightly, her pronunciation was now different. “Is this easier for you to understand?” It was not like adding or dropping an accent, which some people do, and it seemed beyond just a nanite filter of having them change the spoken words. Her voice had changed.

  My thoughts were racing, ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ I glanced behind me and everyone was staring at me. I stared back at her, and half-expected her to be gone.

  We sat there for a while, her gaze never leaving mine, even though I would occasionally look around the room for something to pop out and say this was a joke, or I was in some experiment. I was going to lash my hand out to grab hers, but she seemed to pull it back about the same time I had the thought. That was kind of odd, maybe she knew what was going to happen as well

  “So are you going to tell me what is going on?” I asked her.

  “Kind of an odd question.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment. “Look, please, I get that, you have stated it enough times. I am trying hard to not get angry here. I want to know why I seemed to have had a dream about you, about this whole place. That guy over there wanted to fight me, and this guy here,” I said, trying to point them out without making too much motion, “shoots me later and I almost die. Then later the whole world goes black and everything on the planet dies.”

  As soon as I said everything I wanted to grab them back. Here I was pulling up to some amazingly attractive girl who gave nothing but cryptic answers to dodge my questions and I spilled my whole crazy psyche before her. Trego, you fail the test, we condemn you to a permanent life of wandering the streets.

  “If only you were right in the scope,” she said to herself before looking back to me. “Did you learn anything?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I learned a lot, but I am the one asking questions.”

  She grinned, her perfect white teeth shone for a moment. “Are you? It appears you let me ask one.” Evidently she possessed a bit of wittiness beyond her cryptic clauses. I had to laugh once at her wit. I liked her, even if she pissed me off.

  “You aren’t used to having a conversation are you?”

  “Do you want me to answer that?” she asked.

  “Oh, so now you would answer some stupid question? Look, don’t answer that one, but tell me this, have we met before?” I said emphasizing the last part.

  “Yes.”

  The first guy who fought me had now walked up; I did not like where this was going. “You are scaring some of the others. I think it is best if you left before something happens.”

  I turned to him. “I think it’s best if you shut your face before something happens.”

  I looked back at Proud who had resumed a tight, thin smile, almost as if she
was trying to subdue a laugh.

  “That so?” the guy asked loudly. “Well why don’t you shut this!?” My drink was sent crashing and spilling into me following his comment.

  No! My dream warned me about this, and it happened anyway! I turned quickly back to the girl.

  “We are involved in something big here, aren’t we? By that I mean you and me right?”

  “Yes, but that is an understatement.”

  “I’ve seen this before last night in my dream, and I was supposed to avoid it. But I know what I need to do to avoid getting shot. I will be back. I hope we will meet again.”

  “I know. You always are. We always will.”

  I wanted to ask her something about what she just said but a shot exploded off the Dimaglass on the window behind us. I lifted my Liner pistol, firing at the glass myself until it shattered from the multitude of rounds unloading their kinetic energy into it and jumped through, feeling a shard tearing into my shoulder.

  I ran and ran, getting away from there. I stopped, breathing hard, and started laughing.

  “Yes! I did it!” My dream warned me about today. I must have some sort of Chrono Sense that was activating to prevent me from getting shot at. Of course, this was nothing new; a lot of special people had some of these advanced Senses, but to have it myself? Great! Hell yeah Trego, you won’t be on the streets much longer now.

  Hahaha, man what a relief. Though I felt my shoulder burning and I remembered the Dimaglass cutting it. It was a decent cut, the blood staining my white shirt; but compared to the gunshot, it was much preferred. I guess this precognition worked slightly metaphorically given my injured shoulder.

  It was probably stupid to have gone there, but I had to know. Now I do. Jeez, I guess I should pay attention to my dreams from now on. My shoulder injury was hinted at through the dream, even if its source came differently. So I guess my Sense did not protect against just a single path as I had quite clearly took a different one, but rather protected me from a general outcome. Perfect.

  Precognition was badass. My feelings were elated with how exceptionally cool this was. About time something like this happened to me.

  I laughed a bit more, feeling the euphoria within me as it gradually subsided. The euphoria left, and my mood continued to go down beyond normal. I actually felt depressed. Something was not right here, I was missing something.

  And I think it had to do with that girl. We were linked maybe? I had heard of stories of people that had Sense ‘links’ between themselves, telepathic links of sorts. Maybe that might have been it.

  Senses, or the official term ‘Psionics’, were studied pretty thoroughly for their military application among other things. What sounded closest to what was happening to me was the ‘Chrono’ branch of Psionics. I don’t think I had ever met one, but they were supposedly pretty weird people, and they could see ‘manifestations of potential futures’. Maybe that is what was happening here, but why I would have this now left a lot of questions. Further, those people did not need others to do it. Damn…I really should have read more about those linked Senses instead of just skipping to some dumb cat video or whatever was next in the queue at the time.

  I for sure do not remember that girl beyond just the dream, but she seemed believable enough that she knew me. Maybe our link is she can see through me, and I in return get some sort of precognition? Eh, that was kind of weird. If she had been seeing what I was doing with my life that could be pretty awkward given some recent…actions.

  My mind thought of some other options. Maybe she is the one with the precognition and I was gaining a touch of her ability? Maybe she just knew that guy was violent and relayed that to me subconsciously? Man, I was just throwing stuff out there. None of it felt right.

  Hmm. I walked a few streets over to the main road into ReCorp and pulled up on a bench on the street. I think it was a bit of time after this the next event happened in the dream with the loud truck and the fight where I killed the man. Recalling the dream, I got into the bar scuffle, talked to the fence-guy for a while, then ended up on this street a bit further down.

  Time passed by slowly and I was about to give up on seeing if this part actually occurred when I heard a truck with loose gravplates. Sure enough it was the ReCorp supply truck. I could not be sure, but the time seemed nearly identical. Maybe because nothing I did altered this specific event’s outcome so it progressed unhindered? That made a lot of sense, me screwing around didn’t change the truck’s route at all.

  Interesting. This precognition could be pretty useful. I wonder what triggers it? Just such a close call with death based on actions I might have chosen? That was usually what triggers Senses to be unlocked. Close brushes with death would sometimes ‘unlock’ latent Senses in people. So maybe my close call was my potential gunshot and somehow I unlocked it? No. That didn’t seem right either.

  Regardless I could get off the planet for sure now. I just need to see and remember something that happens and make some credits off it. Though I wonder if I need the girl with me? How far do linked Senses range?

  She seemed playful enough. Maybe she liked me, or at the very least liked me because we gave each other our locked power. ‘Yeah, I’ll do some unlocking on you, baby…’

  This could be really useful. I used to gamble a lot, but got out of it when I was low on creds. If I knew what the results were going to be, I’d make so much. It’d be perfect, she’d wear this sexy little dress, laugh and flirt with everyone nearby while I’m raking the chips in. Would she be interested in being my gambling accomplice?

  Alright, first thing first. I need to get out of here and make sure I don’t end up on some other time path of me dying anyway. It was odd. In a single planet cycle, I now felt that a scary chance existed that I might be killed and not have ‘seen’ it coming since I did not see anything else of this day since I had changed what I was going to do.

  Having this power conversely made me really cautious. I found something really valuable and didn’t want to lose it. I had to cash this in big while it still lasted. Damn. I used to feel tough, but now I felt really vulnerable of getting a smiting from the random heavens: a piece of building falling off, a bad driver, a murder, all of these chances seemed destined now to end me. I had this crazy power, and it’d sure be poetic if I died by getting ran over. That’s how this stuff always goes, I’ve seen the holos. This was going to be different. I was going to go all the way to the top with this power, and just be careful so it doesn’t end prematurely.

  I walked back to my room quickly, nervous of anyone that came close to me. I decided any details I knew now, but might forget later, could be the key to what happened here, so I sat down to record them. I went through everything I could remember, from the fact that the dream seemed completely real, to the fact that I seemed to know where a building was and the people within, both of which I was pretty sure I did not actually know.

  I first gave reasonable and simple explanations: it might be subconscious memories, or that I indeed might have met that girl before, or I simply knew of the bar and people because I have gone inside there.

  Next were the cooler ideas I believed were true. I went through explaining everything: that people behaved predictably until I gave a different line, the physical pain of the ‘gunshot’ and that I ended up hurting my shoulder which could have been symbolic of each other. Other things like seeing the old man, or the rumbling of the vehicle.

  As the day wore on and it started getting darker, I remembered to add the final part of the black sphere that signaled the end of the dream. I was not sure what that part represented. Maybe some symbolism of corruption taking over and to not use my power for evil? Nah, I was a force for justice.

  As I contemplated that, I realized something very grim. My hands did not look the right color. I lifted my head rapidly and looked around and indeed, all the colors were of that drained appearance. “Oh no…” That black thing was not symbolic of my ‘evil intent’ at all…it was a tiding of what
would actually occur!

  I ran to the window, saying ‘no’ over and over, hoping I wouldn’t see what was going to destroy us all. But there it was, the small black sphere that was ever so slowly expanding before it would start accelerating faster and faster.

  “No…” I staggered back. I dreamt I was going to die, and now here it was. It felt like a colossal waste that I discovered this precognition and it was for nothing.

  I shook my head, knocking the fear out and trying to think critically here. There was only one thing that might work. “Proud! Hey, Proud, can you hear me!?” I shouted desperately, hoping somehow she could talk back to me. Maybe this link was the last thing that might work to do…something.

  “Yes?” Well that is odd, she sounds close. Was this was telepathic communication is like? I turned around and noticed she was right in my room.

  “How…?” I started, but she shook her head no. “You’re right. Look, can we stop this?”

  “Not now.” She walked up to me, grasping my hand and we turned towards the sphere that was now visibly picking up speed.

  Her hand was warm, real. She felt like the only real thing in this nightmare.

  She jerked my hand and pulled me into her. Her other hand went to my butt, and rubbed down my leg. “Ahh, bodies feel so enjoyable.” She pressed into me somewhat roughly. “At the least, this end is often fun. Still, Physicals are so, so, foolish that they never understand what they have.” My eyebrows shot up in surprise, what the hell was she doing? I…we were about to die and she is feeling me up?

  “Proud?” I asked her.

  She lifted her face to mine.

  “We are going to die, aren’t we?” I asked her.

  “In a way, yes.” Her words were simple, but they left me hopeless. “This path is over, so I can do this without compromising the goal.” Her hands moved sensually over me even though my body felt weak.

  My body dropped, her hands went to my shoulders, holding me with surprising strength, as if I was weightless. My limp body was looking upwards at her. Her straight arms held me without flinching as I looked at her face.