Start (38 page)

“I am
not from your space time.”

“Not
from my space time . . . ? Do you mean
dimension?” he spluttered.

Nida
appeared to consider him. “Yes, dimension. I am not from this
realm,” she brought up her hands and considered the light racing
across them. “We are from a dimension close to your own. Too close.
Sometimes one leaks into the other. That is how I have come to be
here. But I cannot stay,” the entity returned Nida's gaze to him,
and deep in her blue lit eyes he saw an even more powerful burst of
light. “If I stay here, I will destroy myself and I will destroy
others with me. I must go home.”

“How
do we get you home?”

“This
planet is a bridge. It is a point that aligns with my dimension. At
certain times, it forms a bridge between our worlds.”

Carson
nodded, though he was having trouble keeping up. Other dimensions?
Bridges between worlds? This sounded a lot more like the plot of a
particularly unscientific holographic movie, and less like
reality.

But he
did not dare interrupt.

“To
return home, I must go to a time when the bridge is
active.”

Carson
took a breath. He could understand
that . . . kind of. Then he abruptly shook his
head. What was he thinking? Was the entity suggesting time
travel?

“We
must find a bridge,” the entity continued.

“Okay,
but how do we do that?” Do we just wait
here . . . for one to form?”

The
entity shook Nida’s head. “Remus 12 has unstable time,” it answered
cryptically.

“What
does that mean?”

He
wanted to know everything the entity had to say, but, for the love
of god, Barbarians had landed on the planet. He had no idea how
long it would take them to find this room. They couldn’t stay
here.

Just
as that realisation formed, Nida put up a hand. “We are safe in
this room for now,” she answered, as if she could read his
mind.

“Fine,
but what do we do now?” he asked through a pressured
hiss.

“We
must find a time gate and travel to another point in Remus 12's
history,” the entity announced.

Carson
just looked at her. Slowly. Because what she had just said made
absolutely no sense.

“We
must continue to use the time gates of Remus 12 to search for a
bridge to my dimension.”

. . . .

“Sorry, what?” Carson wiped a hand across his mouth. He'd been
on his fair share of strange missions—space wasn’t a simple place,
after all—but what the entity was suggesting was insane.

Time
travel simply wasn’t possible.

For
the first time, he wondered whether it was playing a game. Whether,
just maybe, it had never intended to free Nida. Whether it had
simply brought them down here to entertain itself.

His
jaw stiffened at that thought, and he regarded the blue light
dancing across Nida’s face with new eyes.

Maybe
the entity sensed his suspicion, because Nida took another step
towards him, flattening a hand on his chest.

He
wanted to catch it and pull away, but he couldn’t.

Again,
he saw flashes.

Vivid,
lifelike visions filled his mind.

He saw
Remus 12 as a planet bustling with life. He saw its marvellous
technologies, he saw its people, and then he saw the war that ended
it all. A terrible civil war that pitted one continent against
another.

He saw
their cities crumble, their fields and forests burn, and their seas
evaporate as a weapon of incredible power destroyed everything on
the surface of the planet.

He
wanted to shake back, he wanted to cry out in fear and panic, but
he couldn’t.

He was
still in the vision.

Then
that image of destruction ended, and he saw Remus 12 at a point
further back in its history. Its cities were less developed, its
technologies much simpler, and its people happier.

As
these visions intermingled, he got a strange sense of the entity in
his mind.

It
seemed to be sharing with him, in part, how it understood
reality.

It had
no theory of time. No understanding of the progression of one point
to another. It lived beyond linear causality and explanations and
in some realm far too confusing for him to understand.

Then
Nida took a step back. Again, she removed her small palm from his
chest. This time it felt as if she took away a part of him, and he
stumbled forward.

“Do
you understand yet?” the entity asked, its usually calm tone
flaring with passion and haste. “You must find the time gates. You
must travel to different points in this planet’s history. You must
discover where the bridge to my dimension has shifted
to.”

All
Carson could do was nod. The visions were still raw in his mind,
and he instinctively knew it would take him weeks if not months to
process them all. But he didn’t have weeks or months. In fact, he
didn’t have any time at all. “How do we find the time gate?” he
asked through a rasping voice. He didn’t know if he believed the
entity—he didn’t know if he could conceive of time travel as
possible—but right now he realised it didn’t matter.

Barbarians had landed on the surface of the planet, and at
some point, they would make their way down to these tunnels. He had
to do something, and if that meant playing along with the entity
for now, so be it.

“There
is one in these tunnels.” The entity said. Then it turned Nida
around, and she walked with strange, jarring steps towards the
opposite side of the room. Together they travelled down a new set
of stairs, and if it weren’t for the incandescent glow of Nida’s
skin, Carson would have needed a light to see by.

Though
the ceiling above him kept on shaking, and small, fine particles of
dust kept on landing on his head, he tried to ignore it. He focused
on following Nida.

He
also tried to ignore the latent tingle in his chest from where her
hand had touched his armour.

What
was the entity? What was it capable of?

More
to the point, where was it taking him?

They
finally reached another room, and this one held yet another
statue.

It
wasn’t broken, though, and with a small stumble, Nida threw herself
forward towards it.

Wordlessly, Carson followed, ready to pick her up if she fell
over again. The entity didn’t appear capable of completely
controlling Nida’s body. Every movement she made under its
influence was ungainly and wobbly, as if she were nothing more than
a doll being walked along by a child.

As
they reached the statue, Carson looked up at it.

This
one depicted a man of indiscriminate race and age.

His
face was covered by a hood, but that wasn’t the distinctive
feature.

What
he wore on his wrist was.

It was
a strange black metal device with intricate symbols carved across
it. It wrapped around the wrist, but also sat over the back of the
hand, straps of metal wire securing it to the palm.

As he
neared, he noticed the device was giving off a faint red glow. “Is
this the time gate?” he asked.

“No,”
the entity replied as she reached up and, without hesitating, took
the device from the statue’s hand.

“What
is it then?”

“It is
yours,” the entity handed it to him.

He
didn’t accept it. He simply stood there and looked at it. “What the
hell is it?”

“You
will need it.”

“Why?”
He stared into her eyes.

They
flashed with blue. “You will need to fight the corruption. If we
stay on Remus 12, the effects of the corruption will slow, but they
will not stop. You will need this to fight them,” she held it
towards him.

He
still didn’t take it from her. “How will it fight the
corruption?”

“It
will hold things in place and force them back,” the entity answered
cryptically.

“Not
good enough. I need to know exactly what that thing does before I
accept it,” Carson began.

“Please,” Nida said. It wasn’t the entity speaking. In fact,
it was the first time Nida herself had said a word for countless
minutes. She looked up at Carson, and he saw how terrified she was.
“Carson, please, just take it. We can’t stay here any longer. We
need to find the dimension bridge; we can’t waste any
time.”

“But
what is the entity doing?” he asked, his voice shaking with
desperation.

“It’s
not a trap,” she choked over her words, “please, believe me—take
it. If you wear it, you’ll be able to stop me
when . . . ,” she trailed off and took a
steadying breath, “when the entity loses control, like it did back
on Earth when I kept having those accidents with flying objects.
You’ll be able to stop them with this,” she handed the device to
him.

He
didn’t want to take it. His objective, trained mind told him not
to. But his instincts saw him reach out and pull it from her
trembling grip.

As
soon as his fingers clasped around the device, he felt its power,
or rather his telekinetic implant did. The thing vibrated in his
chest, actually rattling his rib cage. Before he could say
anything, Nida turned and ran from the room. “Where are you going?”
he called after her.

“We
have to find the time gate before the Barbarians make it down to
these tunnels,” she screamed at him.

He ran
after her.

He
actually ran after her. She was talking about time gates and
devices that could counter the entity's terrible power, but he
still followed.

Because a part of him was starting to believe. No matter how
strange the entity’s explanation had sounded, the pressure of the
situation told him he couldn’t afford to be sceptical forever. He
had to proceed with an open mind, and yes, he had to do everything
he could to help Nida.

Everything. He suddenly made the decision that, no matter what
it would take, he would fix this. Not because the Admiral had told
him to, but because he owed it to both Nida and himself.

So he
ran forward. As he did, he turned the device around in his hand
until he fixed it to his palm.

As
soon as he put it on, he felt its power.

Its
incredible, astounding power.

A
power he would need far more than he could appreciate at that
point.

For he
was about to be thrown through time with nobody but the worst
recruit in 1000 years to help him, the both of them plunged into a
desperate and terrible quest to save the entity before it was too
late.

Cadet
Nida Harper

She
had to find the time gate before it was too late. Soon the
Barbarians would make it into this tunnel. And though she could
fight them, it would come at a terrible cost. The more she used her
power, the more the entity would be corrupted.

She
hadn’t told Carson that yet; now wasn’t the time. Plus, she didn’t
know how many blows he could receive and still remain standing. It
was a miracle that a) he'd dealt proficiently with both the
Barbarians and the entity, and b) hadn’t left her owing to the fact
this entire mission sounded crazy.

Because she understood that none of this made any sense. Or at
least it shouldn’t make any sense. But with the entity in her mind,
it did. In flashes, she could see the world through its eyes; she
could understand everything with its ancient wisdom. There was no
time, there was no distinction, just the eternal flow of energy.
That was the dimension the entity came from, and it longed to go
back there with such sorrowful power Nida wanted to cry.

To
think, that less than a week ago, she had been terrified by the
existence of the blue energy in her dreams, and now she was
prepared to do anything to protect the entity.

So
much had changed.

Yet
thankfully, she wasn’t alone.

Again,
she turned to see that Carson was still there.

He now
wore the device on his hand, and when he wasn’t staring around in
thin-lipped worry, he was gazing at the device, his surprise and
wonder obvious.

He
would need it. She knew that, because the entity knew that. As time
wound on, it would corrupt more and more, and it would lose control
of itself. Objects would be pulled towards her, sucked into the
vortex of the entity's power.

But if
Carson could master the device, and if he could act quickly enough,
he would be able to save them both.

As
they ran through the darkened hallways, finally they found a
room.

Carson
slammed to a halt in the doorway and tried to pull her
back.

“What
the hell?” he screamed.

The
room was full of floating stones, dust, and the cracked bodies of
statues.