Chapter 39
John Doe
His brow did not have a chance to get covered with sweat; his armor always insured optimal operating conditions. But right now, without it, John would have been a mess.
This was not going according to plan. While Evelyn had been able to easily gain minimum control of the hacker orb, she had not managed to overcome the cloak.
‘I just need time, I can do this, I can do this,’ Evelyn kept on trying to convince John as she stood with her back pressed up against the wall.
They were in a small section of tunnel just below the hole in the hull that led back up to the exposed roof.
John had pulled Evelyn off to the side, away from the security forces that guarded the hole and were passing turrets and blocking fields through it, so that she would have the air and space she needed to get her work done.
‘Take your time,’ John encouraged. Even though he really didn’t want her to work slowly, he didn’t want her to feel pressured either.
Because she did look pressured. Her eyes were drawn in concentration, her lips crinkled in a frown, her brow pressed with lines. As she moved her head, her hair darted across her face, and John almost wanted to reach out a hand to brush it back.
They certainly did not have that kind of relationship though. Not yet anyway.
And hopefully not ever; John did have a task to do here, and it was to protect her and his crew on their mission, nothing more.
‘I don’t know what’s happening, I’ve done this hundreds of times before, why can’t I gain full control?’ Evelyn didn’t look up at John as her hands kept on twisting around the ball.
It seemed to be fidgeting in her grip, as if it wanted to get away.
‘Oh God, it’s like something is blocking me,’ Evelyn brought up her hand and tucked her loose fringe behind her ears, the movement shaky.
John latched onto her words.
‘Blocking you? What do you mean?’
‘In training, occasionally, if the Admiral made us, we would try to interfere with each other’s connections,’ Evelyn looked up at him for a second, and her gaze darted straight back to the device in her hands. ‘And this feels like that . . . though different somehow.’
A single dribble of cold sweat trickled down John’s brow, but as soon as it did, the armor evaporated it.
It left a chill however. ‘Do you think that’s what is happening here? Could somebody be blocking this? Could a member of the Aurora Project . . . ’ John trailed off.
‘No, it’s not like that . . . I don’t know what’s happening,’ Evelyn stuttered through her words again. It was clear she was frustrated and flustered, but she was still doing her job. ‘Nobody would interfere with this mission, they know what it means. And nobody from the Aurora Project would ever go against the Admiral’s orders.’
John’s brow crumpled at that. Alice had not said that nobody in the Aurora Project would go against the Union’s wishes, or the desires of its citizens, no, just the Admiral’s orders. But despite the choice of words, John understood the sentiment.
‘They wouldn’t undermine this mission, they know how important it is, the possibility of finding Old Ones, they all know what that means,’ Evelyn said distractedly as she kept on trying to manipulate the device in her hands.
‘You mean Old Tech,’ John corrected her immediately.
She stopped what she was doing, her gaze darting upward. She looked sprung. Her hands shaking in surprise for a second, she shook her head. Then she crumpled her brow again. ‘No, Commander, that’s not what I mean. And there’s no point in hiding it from you; the Admiral was going to tell you this afternoon anyway.’
‘What?’
‘There’s a possibility . . . . Just a chance . . . .’
‘What?’ John leaned in, pushing the hand of his armor into the wall to anchor himself in position.
‘We have received reports,’ she licked her lips carefully, ‘that just maybe . . . possibly . . . there might be some left alive.’
His eyes crumpled, narrowing into a squint. ‘Some of who or what alive?’
‘The Old Ones. In stasis. There is the possibility, considering how much Old Tech has been found along the Rim,’ Evelyn’s voice had dropped to a whisper, ‘that we might find some in stasis.’
John shook his head in a snap. ‘The possibility?’ He questioned her choice of words.
Looking exasperated, she pawed at her hair, pushing it behind her ears again. ‘No. Okay, it’s more than a possibility. And these reports are reliable. The Admiral and the whole of the Aurora Project have a strong suspicion that there are Old Ones still alive in the Rim. That’s the point of this mission. That’s why I’m coming along. I’m bringing devices . . . that will be able to track them down. Pull them from stasis. And John,’ she leaned closer towards him, her face barely 30 centimeters from his own, ‘I don’t need to tell you what that would mean. We could waste the rest of our lives trying to figure out how to use and re-energize Old Tech. But if we had just one of the ancients alive, we could ask them. Think of all the lives and effort and energy we could save?’
John’s grip faulted on the wall for a moment, and he actually stumbled forward closer to Evelyn, his helmet almost brushing up against her hair.
She shifted back, but not immediately. She kept her eyes locked on his though. ‘I’m not lying. The Admiral was going to tell you tonight. This is the real point of the mission. And this is why we have to succeed. So no, nobody from the Aurora Project would dare intervene here.’
John’s mouth was dry, his shoulders felt loose and weak, and there was a distinct and uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.
He also felt out of breath.
She had to be lying, right? Old Ones still alive? That was impossible.
That went against everything he had ever been taught.
The last Old One to roam the universe had been over 100,000 years ago.
It was a fairy tale, a hopeless dream to assume any could have survived into the modern day.
And yet as he looked on at Evelyn, her gaze so locked intently on his own, she did not seem to be lying.
‘I promise it is the truth,’ she said as her eyes darted around, searching his.
He believed her. He really did.
He finally got control of himself, shifting backwards, locking his feet into the ground, ensuring he would not stumble again.
‘But how do you know?’ His voice shook as he questioned her.
‘Because we found something,’ she said through a heavy swallow.
‘What?’
‘A holographic feed. A live one. Showing stasis pods.’
‘Who’s inside?’ he asked. But he knew the answer.
‘Old Ones,’ her lips wobbled badly over her words, her voice mumbled and strained.
John swore. ‘That’s impossible.’
She shook her head, keeping those blue eyes locked on him the entire time.’ It’s not. I can show you. In fact, I will show you, when this is over. The Admiral has the footage. It’s being beamed out on a signal, you can access it at any time. We know that it comes from the Rim, we are just not sure where. The exact location is scrambled somehow.’
John’s face was cold, in fact his entire body felt cold in that moment, and his armor suddenly redirected energy into equalizing his temperature.
‘John, I’m not lying,’ Evelyn said again.
He really did believe her. Yet he did not want to believe what she was saying. It sounded impossible.
‘We have to . . . get this sorted first,’ John said, forcing the words out. Because they were true. No matter what Evelyn had just revealed to him, they had other priorities now. That elusive woman was still up top near the spire.
Evelyn suddenly gave a gasp, and John snapped his attention to her in an instant.
‘I just got a lock on it, whatever was blocking me is gone,’ Evelyn clasped her hands over the ball, protecting it tenderly.
A passionate but relieved expression crossed over her face, and it made John crack into a smile.
Finally something was going right.
‘If I can get close enough, back up on the roof, I can let the hacker ball free, I can use it to finally gain control of that hood,’ she assured him.
So John didn’t hesitate.