Betrothed Episode One (17 page)

I turned, returning my attention to the maintenance tower and
the terrorist within. “If we can’t break in there in another five
minutes, we’re going to destroy it,” I concluded.

The
security officer spluttered, but didn’t say anything.

That maintenance tower was critical to several key processes
within Cluster. But it wasn’t so critical that if I destroyed it
the city would fall. If I let it stand, there was every chance the
city could fall, however. Because there was every chance Miranda
would find some way to undermine us all.

...

Anna Carter

I had to
get off this planet. I had to get off this planet.

First, I
had to get out of this building.

I didn’t
need to witness the visions flashing through my mind to know that
this place would be surrounded by security. After the kerfuffle I’d
made screaming and clutching at my face before I’d broken into this
place, Fargo and his men would be looking for me.

If I’d
been on my own, without these scenarios twisting and turning
through my mind, I would crumple to my knees, huddle into the
corner, wrap my hands around my head, and give up with a
whimper.

Instead,
I kept pushing forward.

I could
guarantee that every exit to this building would have a security
checkpoint set up in front of it, in case I was brazen enough to
walk outside. In my mind that meant there was no way to get
out.

There clearly was however, as I could see a vision of my
escape playing out in my head.

First I
made my way down to the basement. Not the bottom floor, but many,
many floors underneath that.

It
didn’t take as long as it should. I seemed to know instinctively
where lifts were, or ladders, or interconnecting
tunnels.

I didn’t
move in a logical manner, or at least not logical to my mind. Soon
I entered the basement floor, and immediately turned and charged
towards a massive bank of panels on the far left wall.

I
punched my fingers into the buttons, my hands scrabbling over the
controls like frantic spiders.

I didn’t
have to look at what my hands were doing; all I had to do was stare
at what my hands did in my mind.

If I’d looked crazy before, I guaranteed that now I looked
like a demon from the depths of hell. A sweaty brow, my fringe
stuck to it in clumps. Wide open, but dead eyes darting to and fro
as they saw the unseen. My reason locked inside a frazzled,
fatigued, frantically moving body.

After several moments of punching something into the keys on
the panel, I staggered back. For a brief moment I controlled my
body and I slammed a hand over my mouth, crumpling my brow low,
squeezing my eyes shut, and whimpering as if I’d just been
struck.

I had
been struck. Second after second by this insane on-going
vision.

I
staggered back from the wall. I turned, and ran into the middle of
the room, away from the far wall.

Then I
crumpled down briefly as my legs lost the ability to
stand.

Seconds
later a worrying hum built in the air. I watched the panels along
the far wall start to crackle with electricity.

They
exploded, taking a massive chunk of the wall with them.

Before I
could be crushed by the roof or sliced apart by flying shrapnel, a
security force-field flickered in place around me.

It
stopped chunks of the ceiling from falling down and crushing my
head, it even dampened out the vibrations rattling through the
floor until all I felt was a slight shake as if someone had tapped
me on the shoulder lightly.

I stared at the wall, stared at the destruction, chunks of
panel scattering over the floor and trailing sparks and black
swathes of carbon particles.

Once the
rubble had settled and the fire abated, the security force-field
around me cut out.

I saw
myself running forward, so I scampered to my feet and I ran
forward.

I dashed
through the still smoldering hole in the wall.

No
alarms blared, and I knew the reason why. It wasn’t because they
didn’t work or they hadn’t been installed; I’d turned them off.
Somewhere on one of the many panels I’d accessed, I’d disengaged
the alarm system, among other things.

Who knew
how much damage I’d done, but whatever it was, I knew I was headed
for prison.

As powerful as that thought was, it was pushed to the back of
my mind as the vision took hold again.

The wall I’d blown up led onto a winding access tunnel, and I
ran through it as if my life depended on it.

My
conscious mind started to shut down. There was no lighting in this
access tunnel, and from the look of it, it was little more than a
shaft that had been used to construct the tower.

Despite the fact there was no lighting, I did not once
stumble or miss my footing.

I observed my brain go through several iterations - stumble
and fall a few times, but after several iterations the vision in my
mind would settle and it would show me how to run forward without
harm.

I didn’t want to believe what was happening to me was even
possible, so I withdrew, turning in on myself, drawing into my mind
as if I was falling down and drawing my arms around my
body.

I followed the tunnels, always turning and twisting,
following the impulses within my mind until I came to another door
with an access panel. In by now familiar style, the vision informed
my fingers how to manipulate the access panel until the door
opened.

I didn’t hesitate, bursting through.

Fortunately the room before me wasn’t populated. It was
completely empty, strewn with building equipment.

I picked my way through it, grabbing supplies, though I had
no idea what I was picking up. Devices I couldn’t identify, yet
things the vision told me I needed.

A few times I tried to reason that this couldn’t be real.
That despite how immediate and intense it felt, it was a
hallucination.

It had to be a hallucination, because it wasn’t possible.
Simulations that predicted the future and told you what to do could
not be real.

Yet the more I tried to convince myself it was a
hallucination, the more terrified I became.

Because it just wouldn’t stop.

It
wouldn’t stop.

I made
my way through the storeroom, hacking past every access panel I
came across.

Soon I
entered a populated area.

It must’ve been far away from the original maintenance tower,
because there were no security staff in sight. Just a hurried
worried crowd. I slipped into it with ease.

Before I
could stop myself, I grabbed a cloak off a passing alien, stealing
it with such quick deft hands I swore they didn’t belong to
me.

The alien somehow didn’t notice, and within a few steps I’d
furled it around my shoulders and slipped further into the
crowd.

The
cloak was made of a very heavy sturdy black fabric, and it hung off
my body like a tent.

Underneath it, my hands shook, fingers clutching onto the
collar of my tunic as the vision propelled me forward.

While I
hadn’t been in this future long, three years was plenty to realize
how sophisticated security systems were now. I should have been
picked up the moment I left the maintenance building. But I
wasn’t.

Biometric scanners should have identified my bio signs. They
hadn’t.

Sophisticated security cameras should have been able to pick
up my identity, even under the protection of my coat.

They
didn’t.

The
vision had taught me how to turn those scanners off. Somehow –
running through millions upon millions of scenarios in my mind – it
had struck upon a way to use that maintenance tower to turn off the
security systems of the capital.

That
thought couldn’t sink in. It was two enormous.

I
continued through the crowd, the coat feeling like a blanket as it
hung around my shoulders and face. It fell far across my eyes until
only my chin and bottom lip were visible.

I
couldn’t see, but what did that matter.

I didn’t
have to.

Eventually I made my way through the crowd. I continued,
never stopping for a rest.

I made
my way through the sky bridges to a building several blocks
away.

Somehow
I dodged every security patrol, even though I could see they were
thronging through the city. Yet the vision always kept them at
arm’s-length, knowing where they would be and driving me
elsewhere.

When I
reached my destination – a very tall tower that pierced through the
cloud line – it was getting harder to stay safe. The vision was
working frantically in my mind. Scenario after scenario playing out
in every hundredth of a second.

I’d
never felt fatigue like this. It wasn’t only locked in my limbs; it
sunk deep into my mind. I felt like I was living a life time in
every minute.

I
started to shut down, like a part of me was descending into a
vegetative state.

Did that
stop my body? No. It followed the vision. It followed the vision
until I broke my way into that tower.

There
was nobody about. From the people being orderly taken through the
streets I’d already guessed the city was being evacuated. I’d also
already guessed the reason they were being evacuated:
me.

Me.

Briefly
that terrifying thought threatened to crash through the control of
the vision, but as soon as I stumbled, my body righted
itself.

Once
upon a time I’d thought I’d be going to prison. That wasn’t going
to happen now, was it?

I was
going to be killed.

I was
threatening the security of this entire city, possibly the whole
planet, and possibly Cluster too.

If I
stopped, called the authorities, and tried to explain myself,
maybe, maybe they wouldn’t kill me. Yet there was no way I could
stop.

Even as
I thought about it, I found myself rehearsing what I’d tell
Illuminate Hart once more.

“
My name is Anna Carter. I’m Anna Carter, and I can see
things. Illuminate Hart, you have to help me.” My voice was at
times even and controlled, but at times cracked through with
emotion.

I plowed
my way through that building, accessing the superfast lift that
quickly took me to the top.

What
waited there was a hangar.

There
were no security guards or technicians, and as I staggered into the
room, I saw another few simulations blast through my mind. My head
twitched to the side, and I gained enough control over my hand to
press it into my temple.

Soon
enough the simulations stopped, and a vision of what I had to do
played instead.

I
selected a ship at the far end of the room, and I sprinted towards
it, somehow ignoring the terrible cold pressure in my
chest.

I wasn’t
used to this much exercise, and the body simply wasn’t designed to
maintain this level of frantic activity for this long.

Yet mine
did.

I made
it to the ship.

It was
sleek, new, but small.

If I’d
been the ordinary Anna Carter, I would have had no idea how to get
inside.

The vision-assisted Anna Carter somehow did.

She
lightly patted a point along the hull, just next to an almost
seamless line.

Immediately a biometric hologram appeared and started to scan
me.

Just
when I thought it would blare an alarm, it stopped.

A door
appeared along the hull and opened inwards with a hiss of
air.

I
stumbled in.

Had I
somehow done something when I’d accessed all those panels in the
maintenance tower? Something that now allowed me to access this
ship?

It was a
phenomenal thought. I was simple Annie Carter, a fish out of water
in this wide new future. I didn’t have any skills, and most of the
time I didn’t know what I was doing. And yet I knew enough about
this time to realize that whatever I had done to gain access to
this ship should be impossible.

Should
be, were it not for the millions upon millions of simulations
running through my mind.

I started to slow down when I entered the ship, but I didn’t
stop. I made my way towards the front, stumbling into a cockpit. It
was small; it was clear it was only designed to be manned by two or
three crew.

I did
not know how to fly a spaceship. There were so many buttons, so
many procedures, but did that matter now?

No.

My
fingers darted across the front panel, my chin lifted high as my
dead gaze darted from the left to the right, the vision swamping my
mind as it told me how to take off.