The Harmony Divide- Never Alone

by Dominick Gerard

  The woman managed to get her feet under her and walked bent over, using the wall for support. Her gaze was fixed on a device in the center of the vault room. She placed both her hands on it, and, after a few seconds, straightened slightly and pulled her hands away.

  She returned to the doorway, closed her eyes and cocked her head, as if listening. Confusion danced in her eyes when she opened them again.

  “You’re lucky, dear, that I have a mental block when it comes to hurting people. Goodness, this hurts. Well… I assume you’re here for that thing.” She pointed at the device back in the vault room. “You can’t have it. I need it. Do you have a name?”

  Her mouth remained shut. She would remain silent and look for any opening to free herself. She couldn’t move at all and it was hard to breathe. She didn’t understand what was happening. The woman must have some kind of special weapon she couldn’t see.

  “Ah, yes. Of course. Charles would call this the silent treatment. So, let’s see. You’re either hired by the Russians or Chinese, right? I’d like to know how you found out about this device. We’ll just have to —" The woman stopped mid-sentence and looked stared off in the distance, as if she heard a noise. She did appear to be a little steadier, but the wound still bled heavily and her pain was evident.

  She still couldn’t move an inch. Frustration clouded her senses, but she had to remain vigilant. If she failed, she was dead. Remaining calm, despite these odd technologies the woman used to control her, was key. Whatever device the woman was using to immobilize her would be quite useful for the Empire.

  After a few moments, the injured woman regained her focus. She turned slowly, stumbled, and fell, making her way back to the device on her hands and knees. Once there, she clutched it again and looked back at the vault door.

  “You’re not any kind of soldiers I’ve ever seen. Now listen, I’ve got an idea and I’m going to need your head. First though, I’ve got to keep your friends out of this place while I figure things out.”

  She turned back to the device, concentrating, and an orange glow surrounded her. Visible waves of heat came off her body. The woman looked at the door where her attacker was pinned once more.

  All at once she was no longer pinned to the door. An invisible force dragged her immobile body across the floor until she came to rest in front of the injured woman.

  The woman’s face peered at her, closely analyzing all her features. After a few more seconds, she finally shook her head and smiled down at her.

  “There’s something about your eyes. You don’t have the eyes of a killer, my dear. We’re going to try something I’ve never done before, but I know it’s possible. I’m sorry in advance because I truly have no right to do this to you, but I don’t have a choice anymore. I have to stay in this room to keep that shield in place. Your friends really can’t get in here. It won’t last forever, but it will hopefully be long enough for you to do something for me.”

  She didn’t know what to make of this woman. Her training instincts told her to struggle and complete her mission, but that seemed hopeless right now. All she could do was look back up at the woman and wait for her to do whatever she wanted to do. The other woman gazed at her for another moment before brushing some stray strands of hair away and placing a hand over her attacker’s forehead.

  “My name is Jenn, by the way. We’re going to become very close–literally. I’m going to be in your head. I’m going to transfer my consciousness into your brain and we’re going to figure out what’s going on together. After I do that, you’re going to set a new entry code on the control panel over there, walk out the vault, close it, and go to sleep for a moment to complete the transition. My body will stay here and keep that shield up. That’s why I can’t do this myself. This next part is very important. I can tell you because we’re not going to have any secrets between us in a few seconds. You shouldn’t really care about this device. You should be here for me instead.”

  The woman began to glow again, and her hand felt very hot. Her perception and consciousness began to waver. Her vision became distorted and she couldn’t think clearly. Pain lanced through her head and her ears rang loudly. It seemed to go on for a long time, but it abruptly stopped and the woman beside her slouched over as if asleep. The woman, Jenn, kept her hand on the device. She remained motionless, breathing slow and steady.

  She looked at Jenn. “Hi. Are you okay? Oh, you’re sleeping. Shhh.” She held a finger up in front of her mouth and began to whisper. “I’ll leave you alone, so you can sleep. I like your jacket. Oh, good, I have one too. Where did that red ink come from? Now, where’s that control panel? There it is.”

  She walked unsteadily over to the control panel, hit a few buttons, then typed a long series of numbers into it. The door began to shut, and she squeezed by just before it closed.

  “That was close. Oh… look at that pretty white wall. I —"

  Her whole body went completely limp and she fell hard to the floor, landing on her side. She blinked a couple times, still admiring the wall, then finally closed her eyes, but for only a brief moment.

  The scene faded to complete darkness and shifted.

  Jenn

  Curled up in a ball, her knees to her chest and arms crossed, Jenn wiped a tear from her cheek and looked at the woman next to her.

  They sat together on the dirt-covered ground of the school playground in silence except for the muted crying sounds from the other woman. Jenn watched her closely. She had laid down on the dirt ground in a fetal position. Her whole body shook as she sobbed, her mind lost in the traumatic memories Jenn had shown her.

  Jenn let the poor woman cry for several minutes. They had a little more time to work with, but it would run out eventually. Right now, in the waking world, they had hit the pile of corpses and settled near the top. Her clothes hadn’t ignited from the fire yet, but her heart was still. The only thing keeping them alive were the limited resources from the woman’s brain activity. It wouldn’t take long for the fire to start consuming them and her brain to shut down from a lack of oxygen and blood flow. Then it would really be over.

  Blackness danced on the edge of the horizon. It encircled them at a great distance but would close on them like a tightening noose. It was death. When it reached them it meant the young woman was dead and everything was finished. Jenn’s stomach tightened at the thought, but her feelings of sorrow for the woman overrode her fear of the darkness. She rested her head on her arms.

  The time in these dreams was relative. It felt normal, slow even, but when measured in real world time, things happened here in milliseconds. Jenn didn’t know how long they had, but it was unnerving seeing that blackness close in on them. Death was coming, steady and unstoppable.

  Jenn sighed, gathering all her internal strength and composure to speak with the woman beside her for, possibly, the last time. The thought made her hollow.

  “After the crash I was a… difficult person to be around. I barely spoke and I avoided human contact as much as I could. It seemed like all the joy had been drained from the world. I thought all I had was my work and I used it to distract myself from my pain. Fortunately, I had a goal to work toward. Even though the goal was practically impossible, I tried anyway. I tried for years. I studied and calculated and planned, but there was just no way I could see to achieve it.” She lifted head off her arms and looked forward. The young woman was still on the ground, but her sobbing had lessoned as she listened. “The whole time I tried I felt miserable. I ate little and only slept a couple hours a night. I had a singular goal in my life and nothing else mattered. Something changed all of that one day. In the blink of an eye my life was turned around and I had hope again. The goal I had been working towards for so long was in reach. Do you know what it was that turned my life around and gave me hope? It was you.”

  The young woman stopped crying, but had not moved from her place on the ground. Her voice was hoarse as she spoke. “I tried to kill you. You would have died without your powers.
Your body’s in the vault right now with a hole in its - your - gut. I did that! Me!”

  “Yes. Yes. You did but listen carefully to what I’m about to say. Look at me, please.”

  The young woman hesitated a moment before she moved. She shifted, sitting up on her heels and looking at the ground. As her head turned toward Jenn, she squeezed her eyes shut.

  Jenn’s heart seized with empathy. “Look at me, please. Look at me.”

  The woman slowly opened her eyes, took a shaky breath, and turned her head to look at Jenn. Her eyes and nose were red from crying. Her dark red hair was a tangled mess and dirty from laying on the ground. Jenn couldn’t help but smile at her. Even at her worst, the young woman was a beauty. What she didn’t know was that the most important beauty she held was all on the inside.

  “Good. Now, listen. I forgive you. I. Forgive. You. You did only what you were supposed to do. You were following orders. It was not your fault. You are a good person and I am happy and proud to have met you.”

  “No! There’s always a choice! I should have fought my orders. I should have…”

  “Actually, you couldn’t have. At least I don’t think so, but I guess we’ll never know now. Regardless, here’s the truth of it. You and your fellow soldiers have been manipulated with nanites, tiny microscopic robots in your brain, in a way that makes you not question your orders and prevents you from perceiving regular emotions at normal levels. I was able to detect early on that the dopamine levels in the reward centers of your brain were greatly increased when you followed orders. At all other times, those dopamine hormones were basically eliminated. It was all because of the nanites. Your brain was trained intensively to have no choice but to follow orders and not question them. It’s a devious and disgusting training system, but highly effective. Another major condition you’re experiencing is reduced cognition with side effects of delirium, dementia, and some amnesia except, of course, when you’re following orders.”

  Jenn stopped for a few seconds to see if the young woman would have anything to say, but she just stared at her with a blank expression and her lips slightly parted.

  “Okay, that’s a lot to take in. I’m sorry. The good news is, when I entered your brain the nanties stopped functioning. They’re dead and you’re free of them.”

  “You… killed these… nanites? They’re dead? They can’t control me anymore?”

  “Indeed, they are dead. I don’t know if there will be any long-term issues - assuming we live through this - but we’ll work through them if there are.”

  The woman looked back at the ground, lost in thought. “I remember a lot of things about myself that I didn’t before, but I still remember some things about you. Even things we didn’t experience together in the dreams.”

  Jenn nodded. That wasn’t surprising. She had some of the young woman’s memories as well. They still made her shudder. “Yes. That’s partially where some of your personality has come from. Before you had almost no personality. Your mind used my memories to help you form your new perception and consciousness. Now our memories are mixed together and we’ve both changed some. It’s all just incredible and fascinating. I could study this for years and still not know exactly how—"

  “I don’t doubt what you say is true, so how is what you’ve done any different than the nanites? You may as well be them now that you’ve taken root in my brain.”

  “Well, that’s a decent point. I can see how you could look at it that way.” Jenn help up a finger. “There’s a difference though. I don’t want to control you and I don’t want to cause you pain. It’s true that I didn’t get your consent to enter your mind, but I really had no choice. If we get through this, you’ll be free of me. I’ll be in my own body again and you’ll be in full control of yourself and your actions.”

  The young woman got to her feet and crossed her arms, glaring at Jenn before she turned on her heel and stomped away.

  “Wait! Where are you going?” Jenn got up and raced after her.

  The woman turned on her. “Free. Free, you said. Right? Here’s my first choice: I’m done. I don’t want to go on. I just want it all to be over. It doesn’t matter why I did the things I did. It only matters that I did them.” She walked away again, purposefully heading toward the oncoming darkness.

  “Please, you can’t! Please stop! If you die I’m dead, too.” Jenn looked around anxiously at the great empty blackness around them. It was much closer now, gaining on them every second.

  “You should have thought of that before you got into my head,” the woman snapped.

  “Wait! Please just stop walking. Please, just listen.” The young woman stopped and put her hands on her hips. Jenn stepped in front of her. The other woman looked anywhere but at Jenn. Fresh tears lined her cheeks.

  “Thank you for stopping. Look, after I got in your head I saw the things you had been through and what they had done to you. I was horrified, but what broke my heart was the fact that you had never known love in your life. Ever. You had no memories of anybody caring for you or you caring for anybody else. I… I know how lonely you are. Even though you aren’t allowed to feel it or act on it, I know it’s there. Deep and total loneliness. That’s why I always tried to tell you that you weren’t alone and I was with you.”

  The young woman couldn’t meet Jenn’s eyes. She fidgeted endlessly. It made Jenn feel helpless to see the young woman struggle like this with her emotions, but she had to continue.

  “I had to show you what love is. I wanted you to see what it meant for people to care for each other. You could see how much Charles loved me and how much I loved him. Those feelings are possible for you too. I can tell you one thing you already know. I care for you. I really do. You’re a wonderful and strong person and you deserve a chance at a life with love.”

  The young woman stared off into the approaching blackness, tears running down her face. “Why didn’t you just leave me alone to die?”

  “I could feel the nanites in your head. I knew there was a chance I could help you and you had access to a ship… your eyes were so… innocent.” Jenn sighed and lowered her eyes, rubbing her hands together. “Leah would be about the same age as you are right now. I just couldn’t… I couldn’t abandon you, too.”

  The young woman stifled a cry, covering her mouth with her hand. Her shoulders tensed and shook briefly as she cried.

  “I understand if you want to give up. It’s your choice and I have no power to stop you, but before you leave I need to show you one more thing. Please, just one last thing. It won’t take long. I promise. Please…” Jenn pleaded with her. She held her hands together up to her chest, cupped over her heart.

  The woman looked down at her feet, nodded her head a few times, then finally looked up and met Jenn’s eyes. “Okay, Jenn. Show me.”

  Jenn

  The scene shifted almost immediately. The young woman was disoriented at first, ankle deep in snow, but she quickly recovered as she recognized their surroundings.

  They were viewing what seemed like a frozen moment in time from the crash dream they experienced together earlier. The women stood facing each other in the middle of the street. The falling snow was suspended in midair all around them. There was no wind or cold. Everything was still as in a picture.

  The burnt-out car was a few feet away to Jenn’s left. Frozen trails of smoke snaked into the sky like death’s fingers. The tractor trailer had already been removed by Jenn. There were no rescue personnel or vehicles. They were completely alone and everything around them was dead still.

  “Why did you have to bring me back here? I don’t want to see this again. It’s horrible!” The young woman looked away from the crash and put a hand over her mouth, tears welling in her eyes.

  “Come with me.” Jenn held her hand out to the young woman and waited.

  “This is just —"

  “Trust me. Come and look inside.”

  She looked at Jenn’s hand, then back to her face. Shoulders slumping, she grabbed h
er hand and they walked over to the car. Jenn, led the woman forward so she could look into the back seat. The woman looked back at her, then hesitantly began to examine the scene.

  Jenn knew what she would find. Everything inside was burnt, broken, or melted. Jenn couldn’t help, but to feel her pain welling up again. She missed them so much. The front seat would be empty. Somehow, Charles had gotten himself free while the fire raged and crawled into the back where the baby was. His charred remains would be there, his body held tightly over the child’s seat as a shield. Instead of escaping and saving himself, he gave his last breath to protect their child. Charles was more than a wonderful husband and father, he was a hero.

  Despite the terrible tragedy of the event, there was one thing about this crash Jenn puzzled over. This is what she had dedicated the last few years of her life trying to solve. This was her goal and, with the young woman’s help, she was closer now than she'd ever been to achieving it.

  “Where’s the baby?” The young woman popped her head out from the back row of seats. “Jenn, where’s Leah?”

  “That, my dear friend, has been the great question of my life. That’s the reason I took the job at the facility and helped them make that reactor. It’s what I’ve been working toward for the last eighteen years. Leah disappeared, but I know where she is, and, with your help, I want to go get her back.”

  “You… you know where she is and she’s alive?” The young woman stared at Jenn, disbelief and something like relief coloring her features.

  “Yes. It’s very difficult to explain, but when I first arrived at the crash and saw she wasn’t there I didn’t understand what happened. She was just gone with no trace, but as I walked around the car I felt something. I felt a residue of what I sometimes leave behind when I use my abilities. A certain signature of left over particles which I know are mine. It was very hard to detect, but her particles, her signature, was there. I knew then that what happened to Leah was somehow related to my abilities. It’s just—” Jenn stopped, looking over the woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, but we need to talk about this later if we survive this immediate ordeal. I’m sure you’ve noticed that black wall of death closing in on us by now. It’s getting close and we don’t have much time. You have to make your choice.”