Start (20 page)

It was
responsible.

Nida
screamed, but there was no one to hear. She cried too, but she
could not even feel the tears trickling down her numb
cheeks.

All
she could do was stare at the destruction she had wrought and that
which was yet to come.

Carson
Blake

He
stood there and he tried to understand.

He
couldn’t.

He
couldn’t understand how this had happened. He couldn’t understand
how no one had stepped in to stop it. He couldn’t understand how no
one had figured out what was wrong.

But
more than anything, he couldn’t understand why he’d been so
slow.

Something was wrong with Cadet Nida Harper, very
wrong.

As he
stood over her, staring down at her comatose body, guilt crawled up
his spine, burning up his ego as it went.

He was
meant to be a hero. He was meant to be head of the freaking Force,
yet he'd been unable to do anything for her.

He was
a so-called master of the telekinetic implant, yet he’d been unable
to stop that pole.

In
fact, the only thing that had stopped its indomitable attack was
Nida falling unconscious.

And
unconscious she remained as an entire team of medical personnel
fussed around her as she was prepped to be loaded onto a
transport.

Occasionally doctors snapped at him to stand back, but he just
snapped he was going to keep standing right here.

He
couldn’t shift away. He couldn’t move from her side. He just knew
if he did, another TI object would come shooting her way, and he
had to be here to catch it.

“Come
on, Carson, it’s not your fault,” Travis said in a tired, gravelly
voice.

Carson
didn’t turn.

“She’s
in good hands now. Come on, they’ll figure out what’s going on,”
Travis said, but the note of confusion and uncertainty shifting
through his tone was undeniable.

“Right,” Carson managed.

“They’ll have everyone working on it,” Travis tried
again.

“Yeah,” Carson mumbled.

“It
wasn’t your fault,” someone else said. It wasn’t Travis; it was
Alicia.

Carson
finally turned to face her.

She
looked shocked; her eyes were hooded, her gaze glassy as she stared
at the medical transport. It was parked off towards the side of the
square.

Carson
couldn’t say anything; he simply stared at Alicia, and when that
became too uncomfortable, he pushed off and started walking around
the square.

TIs
didn’t just malfunction, certainly not twice.

What
was happening to her?

“They’ll be able to remove it, right?” Alicia stepped forward,
her gaze pleading.

“Remove what?” he wasn’t following.

“The
implant. They’ll be able to get passed
that . . . blue energy and remove
it.”

Carson
pressed his lips together and shot a look at Travis.

Alicia
had been the only person with Nida when she had passed out. Alicia
claimed to have seen some kind of blue energy building up in Nida’s
implant. It sounded outlandish and implausible.

“We’ll
just let the doctors and technicians figure it out,” Travis
suggested diplomatically.

Alicia
turned on him sharply. Her usual fiery determination flared in her
eyes. “You don’t believe me? What, you just think I’m stressed too?
I’m telling you what I saw. There was some kind of energy building
up in her implant, and it forced me back when I tried to touch
it.”

“We
know what you said,” Travis tried.

“No,
what I saw,” Alicia corrected angrily.

“Look,
we’re all tired,” Travis smiled at her carefully, “and we have no
idea what happened. We’ve just got to wait for the doctors to
figure it out.”

Alicia
crossed her arms and stared at him stonily. “She was freezing,” she
pointed out through a stutter.

“What?” Travis shook his head. “What are you talking
about?”

“Nida.
I could barely touch her. It felt like I was shoving my hand into
deep space.”

Carson
let his arms drop loosely by his sides as a chill escaped over his
back. “I felt it too.”

Alicia
looked up sharply. Though at first she had a challenging glint to
her gaze, it soon mellowed. “So what the hell does it mean? Humans
shouldn’t feel that cold.”

“What
are you two talking about?” Travis looked between them both, and
though it was clear he wanted to keep his objective mindset, the
edge to his jaw steadily slackened. Then he swallowed. “Maybe she
was just . . . sick.”

Both
Carson and Alicia shook their heads at the same time.

“No,”
Carson practically whispered, his voice hoarse and croaky. “No,
this was freezing.”

“Come
on, man, that’s not possible,” Travis tried.

“You
mean like it’s not possible for a TI to malfunction, let alone
twice? And how, in god’s name, did it generate enough power to pull
that weapon towards it? Nida doesn’t have that kind of power, and
an implant is only as strong as the wearer is. No, something is
happening here,” Carson turned his head, watching the medical
transport as it finally took off, hovered over the ground for a few
seconds, then shot up into the night sky. Its downdraught rustled
the two trees of the square, sending a few leaves scattering down.
Two of them dashed against Carson’s boots.

“She’s
been screaming in her sleep,” Alicia suddenly said, her voice
distant and cold.

Every
hair on Carson’s back stood on end. “What?”

“I
just put it down to the stress. She said she’s been having
nightmares,” Alicia stared at her hands as she answered.

For
the usually confident, if sometimes-arrogant woman, she now looked
wracked with guilt.

It was
an emotion Carson could identify, as it now crippled
him.

He’d
done so many things wrong. And the worst, above all, was not asking
her sooner what exactly had happened on Remus 12.

Because this all went back to Remus 12, didn’t it?

“The
doctors have checked her multiple times though, right?” Travis
tried, his usually confident demeanour wavering. In fact, he looked
ten years younger, all authority gone as his shoulders crumpled in
and he stared at Carson from under a heavy brow.

“Yeah,” Carson forced himself to answer, “but maybe they
didn’t know what they were looking for. And maybe I should have
tried harder to force them to see something was wrong.”

Alicia
sighed. It was a tight, clearly aggravated move. “It’s not your
fault,” she snapped. “God, if it’s anyone’s, it’s mine. She’s my
freaking flat mate, and I should have been keeping an eye on her.
Instead I invited her to this stupid function.”

“Come
on, you didn’t know something like this would happen,” Travis
walked up to Alicia and tried to place a hand on her shoulder, but
she shrugged away.

“Don’t
even try to make me feel better. I don’t deserve it.” Alicia
hissed.

“Look,
guys,” Travis raised his voice, his exasperation clear, “you both
need to stop standing here blaming yourselves. You two clearly have
your own theories about what happened, and maybe I need to see more
evidence before I can agree with you. But I can tell you one thing;
you aren’t going to achieve anything by standing here and
wallowing. Nida’s being taken straight to the Academy hospital. I
assume she’s going to want someone there when she wakes up. I can
stay here and deal with security, again,” he added with a sigh,
“and you guys can go. Alright?”

Though
Alicia still looked pissed off, she softened at Travis’ offer.
“Fine,” while she kept her arms crossed, she did shoot Travis an
appreciative smile.

“Yeah,” Carson added.

“Alright, go,” Travis pointed behind him in the direction of
the Academy.

Carson
nodded, then strode off, Alicia at his side.

They
walked in total silence.

Though
he kind of knew Alicia, this was the longest time they’d spent in
each other’s company, and the silence between them dragged. He
couldn’t ease it though—he didn’t want to chat about the weather or
the next E Club event. He just wanted to find out exactly what was
happening to Nida.

So
they simply walked together without sharing a word. When they
neared the Academy grounds, however, he got a call.

Feeling flustered, he answered with a huff. “Who is this?” he
snapped, not recognising the number.

“Ah,
sir,” a man squeaked in a clearly worried tone, “Cadet
Lai.”

Carson
had to search his memory.

“I
found that watch before,” Lai supplied helpfully.

“Yes . . . why are you calling me?” Carson
asked bluntly.

“There’s . . . something not right with
it.”

“What
do you mean?” Carson slowed down.

“Well,
it started making weird noises. I thought that maybe there was
something wrong with the processor—so I popped it open to have a
look. I’m a pretty good technician, sir; I fix wristwatches all the
time,” he explained.

“Just
tell me what’s wrong,” Carson demanded.

“Yeah . . . ,” Lai took a heavy breath
that rumbled over the communication line, “the insides
are . . . warped.”

“What?”

“They’re warped, sir. I can’t explain it. Something really,
really weird has happened to it. I mean, I’ve never seen anything
like this, and I must have cracked open over 2000 of these in my
time. It’s almost like it has got too close to a black hole or
something,” Lai reasoned, curiosity brimming through his
tone.

Carson
felt cold.

He’d
slowed right down, and now he stopped, Alicia pausing right by his
side. She looked up into his eyes, tension making her expression
appear poised on the edge of panic.

She’d
clearly heard what Lai had said. “He’s talking about Nida’s watch,
right?”

Carson
nodded.

“I
mean, I’ve never seen a malfunction like this,” Lai continued,
“whatever happened to this watch appears to have happened over
time, otherwise its internal diagnostics would have picked up on
it. As it was, whatever damaged the rest of the watch damaged them
too. Slowly. Or at least I think it did; I won’t be able to tell
until I get it back to the lab.”

“Hold
on,” Alicia stepped in, raising her voice. “Cadet Lai, is it? I
know it’s a long shot, but can you tell me whether the watch was
taken off, or whether it fell off?”

“Ah, I
don’t know,” Lai answered after a pause, “but with this much
damage, the thing could easily have fallen off. I mean, I know
they’re designed to stay on, but something has taken this little
watch way beyond its operating parameters. Why do you want to
know?”

Alicia
looked right up into Carson’s eyes. “My friend said she dropped it,
and I told her she was lying. In fact, I gave her a pretty hard
time about it. But I guess I was wrong.”

Carson
knew the message was meant for him.

“Yeah,
I suppose,” Lai admitted, “ah, you said this belonged to Nida
Harper right?” his voice tightened with interest. “I looked her
name up, and isn’t she the one who was almost killed—”

“Alright, I have somewhere to be,” Carson cut in immediately,
“thanks for your information, Cadet Lai. Take that watch directly
to a lab and run as many tests as you can think of. Just do
everything. I need you to find out as much as you can.”

“Yeah,
okay. I mean, I am meant to do a project for Commander Bayu,” Lai
began.

“This
is an order. I’ll contact Bayu and tell her you’re working for me
now. I want you to contact me—day or night—as soon as you’ve got
anything. Alright?”

“Sure.
I mean, yes, sir,” Lai snapped.

With a
brief goodbye, Carson ended the call.

Then
he made the mistake of glancing Alicia’s way.

“We
were wrong,” she said in a voice crippled with guilt. “Jesus, her
watch really did fall off.”

Carson
didn’t say anything; instead, he walked as fast as he could towards
the Academy complex.

Alicia
hurried to keep up. “What, aren’t you going to say
anything?”

“What
do you want to hear? That I was wrong about that too? Yeah, well I
have made multiple mistakes here, and that’s only one. You don’t
need to rub my nose in it; I’m already doing a perfectly good job
of that myself.”

“I’m
not trying to blame you,” Alicia began.

“Yeah,
you are,” he countered quickly.

“Fine,
I am, a little. But that’s not the point. Didn’t you hear what that
guy said? Something warped her wristwatch, causing it to fall
off—something we were both so sure couldn’t happen.”