by Thom Parsons
Owen followed suit and began to put his own mask on. He slid it over his head and positioned it properly so that he could see through the visor around his eyes. Once he was happy, he tightened it up at the back and then shook his head a little to make sure that it wasn’t going to fall off. He instantly regretted the action. Shaking his head knocked him about a bit, bringing back the pain that hit him hard when he entered this world. He made a mental note to take it easy and to definitely not do that again.
“Looks really creepy,” Kate said to Owen once his mask was fitted around his head properly. Her voice was muffled to him under her mask, sounding strangely similar to the way that Owen heard her voice earlier, back when he was suffering hard with the pressure in his head.
They were ready. It was time to get going.
In front of the two of them, on one of the walls of the White Room, a huge portal opened up. Unlike when Owen and Eli had run the trail on portals back in London, this time around, nothing could be seen through the portal but a consuming darkness. It was a stark contrast to the brightness of The White Room surrounding them. Maybe because it’s in a completely different dimension of PRoGRaM? Owen guessed, but he really had no idea. Either way, the two of them were about to take a leap of faith.
“You sure you’re ready for this?” Kate asked Owen.
“I don't know. But we’ll find out soon enough.”
Together, Owen and Kate both walked through the portal and stepped into the unknown.
Chapter Forty Five
Date: December 1st 2035 (One Week Earlier)
Location: Unknown
Oh my God. Owen thought to himself as he opened his eyes. It was early morning, and even though the sun was barely even out, his head throbbed massively from what he could only guess had been an absolutely intense night of drinking.
Where the fuck am I? He said to himself as his surroundings became clear. Why the fuck am I waking up in an alleyway? Did I really drink that much last night?
And then he remembered exactly why he had been drinking in the first place. Annie. Annie's gone, Owen. Look at what your doing to yourself. Waking up in an alleyway like this? Shame on you. Annie would never have wanted you to degrade yourself to this.
After a stern talking to himself in his own head using the voice of his dead wife, Owen forced himself to travel home. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't glamorous, but he eventually made it back to a hauntingly empty apartment.
And what the fuck did I do here? He said to himself angrily as he walked in. It was almost as if someone had broken in, but deep down, he knew that he was the one responsible for what he was seeing in front of him.
His apartment was half smashed up. Broken glass and splintered wood lined the floors as he looked over how he had seemingly smashed every single photo frame in his front room. All of the photo's were gone. Where the hell have I put them? Or what did I do to them? People deal with grief in different ways. I guess that this is my drunk self's way of dealing with things. Just to break and destroy everything. Sorry, Annie, but I'll fix later. He said to himself as he just walked straight past the mess of a living room and towards his bedroom.
He hit the pillow and fell asleep almost instantly. But what followed wasn't a peaceful sleep as Owen slipped into some form of crazy nightmare. It was clear.
Owen was driving himself crazy.
After four days of recurring nightmares, mixed in with alcohol, he knew exactly what he needed to do. He needed to take his mind off things. He needed to call Richard Sterling.
He needed his job back.
It took an eternity for Richard Sterling to pick up the phone. But then again, it always did. Owen knew that he was a busy man, and never usually answered his phone, regardless of the fact that he was supposed to be his boss. Sterling wasn't the sort of man that you rang. He was always the man that called you.
But this time, Owen was sure that he'd make an exception.
"Sterling," he answered, sounding angry as always.
"It's Archer," Owen said emotionlessly, feeling endlessly empty inside. A rough edge lined his voice, making him sound like a completely different person. It was down to the fact that it had been days since he'd spoken to another human being, or even used his own voice. He just didn't sound like himself anymore. But that was okay, because he didn't feel like himself anymore either.
The death of a loved one will do that to you.
"Well I'll be damned," Sterling replied, a rare tone of amazement in his voice. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you. At least not yet."
"I want back in," Owen stated, getting straight to the point and not wanting to be on the phone for any longer than absolutely necessary.
Richard Sterling let out a little laugh, completely out of his character. "Are you sure? You know I don't usually show my compassionate side. But in this case…"
I don't need your compassion. Owen thought. He was sick of people's compassion. All he had needed lately was time alone. Time was supposed to be the best healer. But even time itself was beginning to get to Owen. Being alone just brought back the memories of pain.
In the midst of life we are in death. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
The helplessness was the worst part of it all. Not being able to have done anything. And now, all Owen did was sit around and mope all day, drinking himself to death.
This isn't what Annie would have wanted. He'd finally began to say to himself. A week had passed since the funeral. Every hour of every day he thought about it. And about the crash. That noise of metal on metal. I'll never shake that…
"I'm sure, Sterling," Owen said forcefully, coughing slightly in between sentences as he spoke. His real voice was beginning to come back to him. He finally began to blow the dust out of his lungs. "I need back in."
"You sound like shit Archer," Sterling said, picking up on his rough voice and the coughing fits that Owen was so desperately trying to hold back.
Well. That's because I'm not sleeping properly you shit. Fucking nightmares have kept me awake every night since the crash. Not just any nightmares either. Fucking recurring ones. I thought those only happened on television or in the movies. Not in real life… I just need to occupy my mind with something other than Annie. Please get me back into the game Sterling. I need to take my mind off everything. I need to work. Maybe then the nightmares will stop.
"Something like that, yeah," Owen replied.
"Well. If you're sure. But only if you're back on top form. And I mean, even then, this is only if you're sure."
"I'm sure."
"Then as a matter of fact, we already have a case lined up for you."
"I'm listening," Owen said, glad that Sterling was letting him back on the team. If he wouldn't… Owen dreaded to think about the state that his mental health may decline to.
"It comes with some extra baggage as well..." Sterling said, rustling through some of the paperwork on his desk as he spoke, trying to find just what it was that he was setting Owen up for. He found the dossier in question and dropped it down on the top of the pile of endless paperwork in front of him, opening it up to find the details inside. "A new member for your team. I need you to train them on being a Manipulator, as long as you can handle it. Her name is Kate Miles."
"What's the job?" Owen asked, finally ready to put his mind to something important and useful once again. It's time to get rid of these demons.
"Man called Eli Roth. Should be a piece of cake."
Chapter Forty Six
Date: December 11th 2035
Location: PRoGRaM Prison System
The unknown was not what they expected. Not at all.
“This is a prison?!” Kate said in shock beneath her mask, her eyes wide as she looked out at the view in front of her. Her voice came out muffled, but Owen understood her words perfectly. Those exact same words were running through his own head.
What is this place?
“I… I have no idea,” Owen replied almost speechlessly.
The t
wo of them were at the base of a huge sphere.
A massive, metallic globe surrounded them. Slowly rotating. The thing must have been miles in diameter. It was beautiful. Artificial sunlight seeped through the very top of the sphere, illuminating the digital world where Owen and Kate stood. Together they stared out mesmerised, looking up at the rotating sphere and feeling tiny as it moved uneasily around them.
Where the hell are we?
Beneath Owen, the ground felt natural. A mix of stone, grass and rubble. It seemed really out of place, being right in the middle of this metal world. In the distance, he could see houses. There seemed to be a small community far ahead of them where he could only assume that the inmates of this world lived.
These prisoners had been put into this world and left to fend for themselves. No guards. No chance of escape. They had been put in here and left to live their lives, away from the rest of humanity. Knowing that death would not save them, these men and women inside had to find a way to co-exist.
“We… erm. We… need to move,” Owen said, still staring into the open space before him, unsure of the words that were coming out of his mouth. All of his attention was caught by this captivating view.
“Yeah,” Kate agreed reluctantly, answering slowly. The views around her were breathtaking, she hardly heard what Owen was saying.
“We don’t know what alarms we’ve set off simply by stepping into this world. We need to move now. Find Alex. Get out.”
Taking the lead, Owen moved forward, walking deeper into the world that they had just stepped into. He looked back to make sure that Kate was following him.
“How many people did you say were captive here?” she asked him once she noticed that his attention was on her.
“Just under two hundred,” Owen replied. It wasn’t a huge amount of people by any means. Trying to find one person in two hundred wasn’t a massive task, especially when they knew what their target looked like. What was more daunting was the fact that they were in an alien environment. A place they had no intelligence on, apart from what they were seeing with their own two eyes before them right now.
It took them near enough five minutes to make their way to the outskirts of the community.
Up ahead of them, people were scrambling around. Owen and Kate had been spotted walking in the direction of their small village and people were visually spooked. Could you blame them? Owen thought. Just looking at Kate through his mask spooked even him out slightly.
By the time that they crossed the fields and reached the outskirts of what looked like a small village, a tiny group of people had formed in the middle of one of the limitedly few streets. They stood together, staring at Owen and Kate as they walked closer, talking in hushed tones between themselves. Owen began to worry. Even though there were only a group of less than twenty men and women up ahead, things could still get ugly. They didn’t look hostile. They looked terrified. Things could change in a second if he or Kate made a single wrong move.
Suddenly, something that Eli had said a few days ago sprang into Owen’s mind. “Can’t pull the plug when you’re in a foreign system, a different system to the one in which you entered. The mind isn’t capable of recognising that change. It’s too dangerous. You might not wake up from it.”
Panic hit him. He hadn’t realised just how dangerous this was. He’d never been putting himself out there like this before. He could always wake up from PRoGRaM in the past. He’d never crossed a line like this before. If these people freaked out and attacked him or Kate, then this was the end.
But to find out what happened to Annie, this was worth the risk.
Together, Owen and Kate walked up to the edge of the group and stopped. Tension filled the air around them all as both groups stared each other down.
“Who are you?” a man shouted out to Owen and Kate, reluctantly stepping forwards and walking out in front of his group. He appeared to be what passed as their leader. Or maybe he was just the most fearless member of their group. Nether-the-less, he was the only man brave enough to step forward. But he didn’t look like a leader. He was just a skinny man, with short black hair. He didn't even look like he belonged inside a prison.
Owen scanned the group of men in front of him. Not one of them looked like a criminal, or looked even capable of committing a crime. It raised more questions than answers about this place. None of these people belong here. What had any of these people done? What the hell is this place?
And why was Alex Morgan even in here? What had he done? Owen didn’t even know that much. But he was sure as hell going to find out.
“Alex Morgan,” Owen said emotionlessly to the man who had stepped forwards, trying not to give the game away. He was trying to act as unmoved and emotionless as he possibly could. The fact of the matter was, Owen was probably more on-edge than the skinny man at the head of the group. But he just couldn’t let that show.
“What about him?” the man asked. He looked uneasy. The sight of Owen and Kate in their terrifyingly gas masks were obviously putting people on edge.
“Alex. Morgan,” Owen said again, slower this time as he stepped closer, bringing his face right up to the skinny man's. He was trying to intimidate him. And by the looks of it, his technique was working.
“He… he don’t hang around out here with… with people,” the man said to Owen. He was struggling to put his words in order, stuttering them. “He keeps to himself.”
“Where?” Owen demanded to the man in front of him when it didn’t seem like he was going to elaborate on this last sentence.
“That building, there,” he said, pointing to a small shack of a building nearby.
Owen turned his head and looked at the building. That was even if you could call it that. The place was tiny, it couldn't have had more than one room inside. He looked back around at the man who had spoken to him. Out of fear, he stepped backwards, away from Owen and back towards the group of men and women that had been stood behind him. It wasn’t like they were backing him up much. Owen was in control.
Without another word, Owen and Kate turned away from the group of frightened people and walked towards the building that their skinny leader had pointed out. The shacks that passed for houses in this Prison System looked ruined, They were nothing special, but they must have been a hell of a lot more comfortable than any standard prison in the real world. Although, in the real world, you could see your family.
Family. He thought. The very reason I’m here.
He reached the house that had been pointed out by the skinny man. Owen reached out his hand and tried the door. It opened straight away without issue, creaking the entire time that it moved. No need to keep locks on these things now, is there? These men and women were already in the most secure place in the world.
Together, Owen and Kate stepped inside.
This is no sort of existence at all.
Owen looked around the dirty, single room before him. The few windows that lined the walls were all smashed. All over the floor, dirt and grime reigned. As for furnishings, the inside was almost bare. All the furniture had been ripped out of the place, leaving it a shell of what it once was. All that was left was an old, uncomfortable looking bed in the far corner of the room.
Owen could feel the anger inside building up. The room was empty. The skinny man outside had played him and had sent him to the wrong place. He was about to turn around and leave when he heard a whimpering in the corner. Owen turned, and edged deeper into the room, trying to get a closer look at where the noise had come from. Then, he found him. Sitting there in the corner behind the bed, was a man, all curled up and whimpering to himself.
Alex Morgan.
But the joy of actually finding him was short lived. Out of nowhere, an unknown force rocked their world, and threw Owen and Kate to the ground.
Chapter Forty Seven
Date: December 11th 2035
Location: New York City Streets
Someone had unexpectedly, yet purposely, clipped the back rig
ht hand side of the van and put Nick's vehicle into a dangerously fast spin. Inside, the G-Forces pulled against its occupants as Nick slammed his foot down on the brakes, trying desperately to slow the thing down and regain control of the vehicle.
The van spun a full three hundred and sixty degree's before Nick managed to get it to stop. It forcefully jerked him back hard into his seat. It was a miracle that the entire vehicle hadn't flipped over.
“You alright?” Nick called into the back of the van. Even when looking over his shoulder, he still couldn’t properly see what was happening back there. “Are Owen and Kate okay?”
“Everything seems okay back here," Eli shouted from the back of the van. "Nothing wrong with PRoGRaM, or Kate and Owen for that matter. Did someone seriously just clip our van?” The anger in his voice began to show.
“Shit!” Nick shouted. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”
“What? What’s going on?” Eli called back with a sense of urgency. He put the laptop down and undid his seatbelt so that he could rush himself up to the front of the vehicle and find out what was going on.
“We’ve stalled,” Nick said, attempting to restart the engine as he spoke, but to no avail. “COME ON!” he shouted at the dashboard of the van, smacking it roughly with the bottom of his fist, as if that could magically do something to help.
“Shit,” Eli said in agreement with Nick. “This is bad.” He turned away from the front of the van and fumbled quickly back into his spot, grabbing the laptop from off the floor where he’d put it down. He strapped his seatbelt in once again. “They’re zeroing in on the signal!” Eli shouted from the back to Nick up at the front. “We need to move. They could cut our connection to PRoGRaM at any-“
There was a sudden crash which violently shook the van and its occupants. Nick’s face flew forward and he smacked the top of his lip into the steering wheel. Luckily he still had his seatbelt on, but the taste of blood hit his tongue immediately. Eli, Owen and Kate were all just as lucky to be strapped in. It didn't seem as if anybody was seriously hurt.