Carson Blake
It was too late.
He'd walked into this trap blindly.
There was nothing he could do.
He'd given Nida up.
. . . .
God.
He'd given her up.
Carson stood there for a single second, immobilized by what he'd done.
This had all been a plan to get her, hadn't it? To separate the two of them?
He whirled on his foot just as an enormous spot light shone down from a higher section of roof, locking him in place against the darkness. He didn't need to put his hand up to stare past the sudden and violent illumination; his armor filtered it out.
‘Do not move,’ a voice came over a loud speaker, ‘you will be shot.’
Carson moved.
And they shot him.
Or at least they tried.
Bullet after bullet snaked his way, biting into the concrete roof under his feet and sending up tufts of dust and rubble. It cascaded around him, but it couldn't blind him.
The smell of the bullets couldn't choke him.
And neither could the bullets themselves fell him.
They all glanced off his armor. Ricocheting this way and that, the sound of them zipping around was deafening.
He powered forward.
He tried to use the Goddess’ tear again, yet once again it wouldn't work.
Damn it.
He'd just have to use his armor.
Which was fine by him.
He launched himself up a sheer wall. He used his momentum to climb it as though it were little more than a slight bump in the ground.
Then he did it again until he reached the raised section where the spot light sat.
Around it were soldiers.
About 45 by his count.
They all shot.
They all failed to kill him.
There were enormous electric cables sitting over the roof, all feeding the massive spot light.
He didn't stop.
He reached one, grabbed it, and yanked.
He pulled the thing free in a cascade of sparks that alighted around his armor like sparks along a match.
In fact, he pulled that cable with such force that not only did he snap it, he sent the enormous spotlight tumbling over too.
It crashed into the concrete roof, the globe exploding in a blinding flash.
The soldiers screamed.
Carson wasn't done yet.
He ran forward.
He reached the side of the roof.
Several men threw themselves at him.
He didn't hesitate. He ducked, he weaved, he dodged.
He reached the high lip of concrete that ran around the roof.
He rushed forward.
He planted his foot on it and he jumped.
The building was a high one, approximately 30 meters according to his scanner.
Which meant the drop back to earth was not conducive to health.
It didn't matter though.
Nothing would in his armor.
He sailed down, locking his arms by his sides and getting ready to roll.
Then he landed.
Or he struck the ground rather.
His armor was heavy—really heavy.
He practically formed a crater as he thudded into the ground.
But that didn't stop him from jumping to his feet, forcing himself forward, and aiming right at one of the enormous metal fences that surrounded the facility.
He pelted forward, and just as he did, he heard a whir.
He knew it was the turret guns set high on the fences.
He didn't even flinch.
With a piercing noise, they began to shoot.
Bullet after bullet slammed around him.
They ate into the ground, dust and stone and dirt shooting up and blasting over Carson's legs and torso as he pelted forward.
Though several bullets managed to strike his armor proper, they did not plunge through. Yet neither did they glance off like the fire from the roof had.
Instead, his armor was forced to put up a localized force field, slowing the bullets and absorbing their impact across a great surface, rather than let them strike his ablative plating.
Though his armor was still fine, it couldn't keep up this level of activity forever. Still, it would take something a lot worse to dent it, let alone get through to the flesh and man inside.
He didn't think as he reached the fence before him—he raced forward, forcing himself into a powerful dive roll.
His body was going at such a speed and his armor was so heavy, that he just ripped right through the tightly wound wire.
It parted before him as if it were little more that thin gossamer curtains billowing in the wind.
He could still hear the screams.
He could still hear the desperate, fearful shouts.
He didn't care.
He just ran forward.
He would get to Nida.
As the resistance had led Cara and him through the tunnels and up to the city, he'd been sure to log their exact route. He knew exactly how to get back to them.
Yet he also knew that Nida would no longer be there.
She would have been moved, taken away . . . .
He shuddered.
He couldn't bear to think of where she could be and what could be happening to her.
So he just ran faster to compensate for that horrible thought.
Faster and faster.
He pushed his armor to its extreme.
So much for not disrupting the history of this planet. So much for not letting them know about his future technology.
He had just punched through the Central Security Facility's defenses with impossible ease.
They would not forget this. The government. The resistance.
Yet he couldn't think of that right now.
He couldn't think of the damage he might have done to the timeline.
‘Come on, Nida,’ he said desperately as he ran through the last section of fence, the wire dashing against him like little more than light drizzle.
Soldiers lined the streets.
One had something that resembled a rocket. Carson just dodged it with an effective and high flip.
He pelted forward. His heart little more than a continuous vibration in his chest.
He would get to her.
Though they would have moved her, that wouldn't matter. He knew what to look for—the only other human on the planet.
Though it might take time and some peace and quiet, he would be able to recalibrate his scanner to pick up only human life signs.
It would have a relatively good range, especially if he boosted the scanner with all the juice his armor had.
He would find her.
He just had to get out of here first.
He ran to her.
Though he could not appreciate it, she ran to him too.
Chapter 18
Cadet Nida Harper
When she reached the street, she soon heard the sirens.
Not long after, gun fire met her ears.
Instinctively she ducked towards a wall as a truck rumbled past with soldiers aboard.
She hid behind the low lip of a wall until it had passed.
Trembling she pushed to her feet.
She could hardly breathe, and her hand was so sweaty around her gun, she worried she would drop it.
Switching grip as she wiped her palm on her skirt, she closed her eyes for a brief moment.
Then she ran forward.
Every now and then she checked the map to confirm she was heading in the right direction.
She did not move fast; she could not afford to.
Though the streets were mostly deserted, every now and then a car or transport would rumble past full of screaming, clearly alarmed soldiers.
She did not need her scanner to realize something was wrong.
The gunfire, of course, also helped.
As she neared
the Central Security Facility, she realized it was coming from there.
. . . .
Carson.
She stood there, stock still, hoping he was fine.
‘He has armor from the future,’ she told herself firmly. ‘He's Carson freaking Blake,’ she added.
He could get out of that trap.
He had the scanner too. And that incredible machine—the Goddess' tear as the resistance called it—would be more than capable of getting him out of trouble.
‘Come on,’ she told herself forcefully.
She walked forward.
Though she started off trembling, soon she commanded her body to still.
She concentrated on doing what it would take.
The city was dark, and as she walked through it, she wondered where all the people lived. Were they inside those cold and drab buildings? Were they huddled in their beds as they listened to the gunshots rip through the night air? Or did they not notice? Had they learnt to tune out the sounds of violence?
Keeping to the shadows and checking her map regularly, Nida kept moving forward.
Her shoes clicked softly on the bitumen and concrete.
Her dress also moved around her, the long skirts furling around her legs as she hurried along.
The green of her skirts and the embroidery were the only color in the whole town.
Everything was shaded in hues of brown and gunmetal grey.
Yes, gunmetal, that was the perfect color to describe what she saw.
Every building was a testament to war. To battle. To the cold embrace of security.
Biting her lips and not caring that she tasted blood oozing against her teeth, she paused to check her map once more.
Then she closed her eyes.
This was it.
She could hear the soldiers now. And the transports carrying them were coming thick and fast.
From this point on she would have to fight.
. . . .
She would have to fight.
Back at the Academy, Sharpe had rightly guessed that she would be useless in combat. Not only was she completely hopeless in simulations, but she hesitated.
She couldn't abide with the thought of violence. She just couldn't stomach it. Which wasn't so much of a problem in the Academy—there were plenty of jobs that didn't require you to grab up a gun and shoot people.
But right now, she no longer had the luxury of doing nothing.
She was Carson's last hope, or something like it.
She also did not have the luxury of planning.
She had to act.
So she did.
In the best way she could.
Though the entity reared in her mind and told her to go back, she pushed forward.
She would figure this out.
She would have to.
Chapter 19
Carson Blake
He ran forward.
They were hot on his tail. Though he could push his armor to let him soar like a bullet out of a gun, no matter how fast he ran, he came across more soldiers.
This city was large, and her security force was larger.
Soldiers were everywhere.
He couldn't hide.
He had to get to Nida.
So he powered forward with what felt like every person on the planet hot on his tail.
Despite how fraught the situation was, as he moved, he still kept the majority of his scanner’s power directed to gleaning what records it could.
Yet whether it had found anything of note was not a fact he could currently check.
He did not have the brain power left over to focus on anything save for getting away.
Ahead of him he heard more troop transports move into place.
The once drab and dark city was now powerfully lit and cast into shades of brilliant white, silver, and grey.
‘Come on,’ he whispered, ‘you can do it.’
It wasn't clear who he whispered that desperate message to—himself or Nida.
Or perhaps it was meant for the both of them. Perhaps right then he prayed with every last scrap of his strength and will for luck.
Just a single moment of luck.
He would get it. But it would require all his years of training and all his future knowledge to capitalize on it.
Chapter 20
Cadet Nida Harper
She ran towards a darkened building before her.
Whilst she understood she had to get to the Central Security Facility, she also appreciated the need to figure out exactly what was happening there before she burst in off the street.
She didn't have access to a scanner, but she did have a set of eyes, and she was now ready to use them.
Pressing her back into the wall behind her, she peeled her senses, trying to figure out if there was anyone or anything up the set of stairs to her side. Metal, large, and grey, they were some kind of fire escape.
Again she was struck with how cold everything in this city was. There was no color, save for her own.
Black, brown, grey, and off-white.
Well right now she ascended those pale silver stairs, pressing her fingers into the dark black building to her side as she climbed up.
She hoped that no one was on the roof. She hoped she wasn't about to come face-to-face with a varg.
Her fears didn't stop her though.
She climbed the final stair, waited a moment in tense silence as she listened for a disturbance before her, then finally climbed up.
She still held the gun tightly in one hand. In fact you would have needed a team of your strongest Barbarians to pry back her fingers right now.
‘Come on,’ she hissed under her breath as she ran across the flat roof.
It was made of concrete or some similar material, and had a thick wall travelling all around it, punctuated only by pipes and guttering that would keep the rain from pooling.
She travelled over the concrete as fast as she could, her footfall indistinguishable from the rapid thump of her heart.
Clutching her free hand tensely into her chest, she reached the side of the wall and immediately ducked down. Forcing herself to breathe, she also forced her back into the unyielding concrete, and used it to inch up slowly until she peered over the wall at the street below.
She still had her map, and after a quick glance, realized the Central Security Facility was somewhere several blocks away.
Instantly she spied it.
It was the one with the massive searchlights on top. Searchlights that sliced through the cold night air, their beams sweeping around in great arcs as they desperately searched something out.
. . . .
Carson.
It had to be him, right?
So did that mean he'd escaped?
Though she wanted to believe that of course he'd escaped as he was a soldier from the freaking future, she was no longer comfortable making assumptions. Assumptions had led to this predicament in the first place.
They'd trusted Cara, they'd trusted the resistance, and they'd trusted this plan.
And, despite herself, Nida had gone against her intuition.
Sharpe had once told her that she had a terrible battle brain, as he put it. According to him, she just couldn't process stimuli quick enough to figure out what to do in a combat scenario, let alone any other situation that required a quick wit, a good decision, and a gram of training.
He was right, and he was wrong.
Nida had never been in a real battle before.
Now she was in one, she was rapidly growing accustomed to it. Okay, so occasionally her eyes still itched with tears, and no matter what she tried, she couldn't still her wild heart. But the point was, she wasn't a mess.
Nor was she a coward.
Though it made her skin crawl, she shifted further over the wall until she got a better view of the streets below. She spent a few pressured seconds watching the pattern of troop movements, then rapidly realized it was concentrated away from the facility.
She scooted off across the roof again, keeping low and trying to be as quiet as her heels would let her.
She reached the opposite wall, peered over, and searched through the cold night.
Again she saw more troop transports, more soldiers, more lights.
But then, in the distance, she saw something else—fire.
The flash, flash, flash of guns.
She swallowed.
. . . .
Could it be Carson?
She grabbed at her map with a trembling hand, and, tracing a finger from where the gunfire was, realized it was back in the direction of the tunnels.
Carson.
She pushed herself up and swallowed hard.
If he had gotten free, and if that really was him, he would be trying to get to her.
But she wasn't back in those tunnels.
Nor could she let him face Varo again.
Though this frantic situation hadn't provided her with any time to think, there was one fact she couldn't ignore—Varo knew she was an alien.
How?
Had he seen through the disguise, or did he know far more than he'd ever let on?
She shook her head, stilled her mind, and brought out her gun.
She looked at it, flinching as she did.
She couldn't let Carson go back to those tunnels.
For all she knew, Varo could be from the future, just like them. It was a possibility that suddenly impressed itself upon her mind and stole away her resolve as it did.
He could have access to weapons, to scanners, to technology beyond these times.
She had to do something.
She walked into the center of the roof.
She drew a single breath.
She brought her gun up and she shot.
One continuous blast right into the night sky.
The light of it was incredible. It was like a glowing sword parting the clouds and penetrating heaven itself.
She kept her finger on the trigger, feeling the gun heat up as she did.
After about 20 seconds, she stopped.
She hoped that would be enough to get his attention.
Because it was sure as hell enough to get everyone else's.
The search lights streaming through the night suddenly all centered on her roof.
She skidded to her knees and aimed for the stairs.
Ouroboros 2: Before Page 20