Betrothed Episode One

  Chapter 10

  Anna Carter

  I couldn’t stop myself.

  I couldn’t stop myself from leaving. Though my rational mind screamed at me not to, it accounted for nothing. The compulsion building within me was too strong.

  And I could see it. This vision playing just behind my eyes showing me how to escape the central security building.

  I followed it.

  I followed the vision as it showed me what to do.

  First, I went to the bathroom and pulled out a small sharp piece of metal from one of the grooming kits.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, I jammed it into my neck, just below my right ear.

  I squealed with pain but muffled my mouth with a hand so my voice didn’t carry.

  I worked the small shard of metal down and under the skin until it connected with my implant. Then I flicked it out as if I was removing a tick from my flesh.

  It left a gaping wound which quickly trickled with blood.

  I ignored it and instead watched my identity implant fall to the floor.

  I’d seen an identity implant before, and I knew what they looked like. This was different. Larger, sleeker, and with more nodes.

  I wasn’t allowed to stand there and stare at it for too long; the vision told me to move.

  My visions were stronger now, sharper. They didn’t have the detail and the all-encompassing reality of the one involving Hart, but they were still strong enough that they left me knowing exactly what to do.

  I picked up the identity chip and walked into the main section of my room. I placed it on the table, a few flecks of blood pooling underneath it.

  Ignoring the wound in my neck, I walked over to the panel by my door. Still holding the small sharp piece of metal, I stuck it into the side of the panel, fidgeting it back and forth until I pulled the metal casing off.

  It clattered to the floor.

  Then I focused, not on the panel, but my vision.

  It was diffuse, filtering in and out, but the more I concentrated on it, the sharper it became.

  As did the pain building behind my left eye. It was like something was gouging into my skull, second after second.

  And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  After several minutes of tinkering, something happened.

  The panel flashed and a low hum filtered out from behind me.

  I turned in time to see the force-field reinforced glass of my window flicker off. As soon as the shield disappeared in a winding down hum like an engine stopping, the glass wobbled.

  I walked over to it, picking up a chair on my way.

  With strength I barely knew I had, I slammed the chair into the glass.

  Somehow through whatever I’d done with the panel, I’d weakened the glass, and my blow was enough to shatter it.

  It tumbled around me, falling over my arms and feet, but not cutting me.

  The wind came. It raced into the building, slamming against me, setting my hair buffeting behind me like a wet sheet.

  I made no attempt to bring a hand up to protect my face.

  Instead, I leaned down and put on the shoes I had been given on being ushered into this room. Fortunately, Fargo had been kind enough to ensure I had clothes that fitted.

  I walked over to the now wide open window.

  I placed my hand on the sill, then, before I knew what I was doing, I clambered on to it.

  My heart raced. It felt like it was trying to reach light speed. Fear pulled and tugged through me like a gravity well or a black hole sucking me into it.

  And yet that didn’t stop me from standing up on that same sill, the wind tearing at my clothes and sending them slapping and flapping around my body.

  Before I could scream, I did something.

  I followed my vision, and in my vision, I jumped.

  Before I could lock a hand onto the sill, my legs jerked forward.

  I jumped out of the window.

  I was so far up I couldn’t see the streets below, the towers were just so many sky bridges and metal ascending to the heavens.

  Finally, a scream ripped from my mouth, but it was too late.

  I was already falling.

  …

  Captain Fargo

  I stood in her room, and I stared.

  I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.

  The force-fields protecting the glass had been turned off, and the window had been smashed.

  There was a bloody implant sitting on the table, the rest of the items that had once been stacked neatly on it were now a jumble on the floor.

  Security officers rushed around me, but I stood stock still.

  I was immobilized, not by fear, but my questions.

  I wouldn’t have the opportunity to be immobilized for long.

  “Whoever hacked this panel,” a technician said from beside the door, “is a genius. I’ve never seen work like this.”

  “What do you mean there is no footage?” A security guard said from the window as she talked to another technician. “Every side of the building is always monitored.”

  “No footage. Whoever hacked that panel, turned it off.”

  “How the hell is that possible?” The guard spluttered with frustration.

  The technician shrugged his shoulders, his shock obvious. “I wish I knew, but I don’t. Those panels are meant to be separate from the main systems.”

  I stood there, and I listened to every conversation, and I looked at every detail.

  Eventually, my gaze darted back to the bloody implant on the table.

  I was no technician, but I knew enough to realize it was a tracker implant.

  While everybody else concentrated on the wide open window and the hacked panel, I grabbed a scanner from a passing technician and walked over to the implant.

  I didn’t scan it. I wasn’t that stupid.

  Tracker implants, depending on their sophistication, could detect when they were being scanned, and some of them could self-destruct.

  Instead, I scanned the blood in the micro specs of flesh surrounding it.

  I needed to confirm where they were from.

  With 98% accuracy, the scanner told me they were from a human female’s neck.

  It was a fact I already knew.

  This was Miranda’s identity implant, except it wasn’t an identity implant. It was a cleverly disguised tracker implant. One that would have been relaying her position, despite the secure shielding and jamming fields of this building.

  “Whoever kidnapped her…” one of the technicians shook his head, “Christ, they must have some sophisticated tech. I’m not registering any bio-signs other than the woman’s.”

  And I doubted he would.

  Because if Miranda was kidnapped, why would the tracking implant have been removed from her neck?

  What was going on here?

  I turned on my foot and walked toward the window. I looked up, then I look down.

  There were lines of hover traffic flying in between the buildings, and my eyes caught the various colored vessels as I tried to stare down to the street below.

  So much for concentrating on the upcoming Illuminate wedding. I wouldn’t be dropping this until I found out what was going on.

  I turned and started barking orders.

  …

  Anna Carter

  I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t dead.

  I’d just jumped out of a window more than 100 floors up, and I wasn’t dead.

  I didn’t sail through the lines of hover traffic darting through the high towers and platforms of the city. Instead, I barely fell several meters.

  I landed on the back of a large transport craft.

  It wasn’t moving fast; it was stuck in traffic.

  The top of the vessel was large enough and rounded enough that when I struck it, I rolled down, part of the impact of my fall being absorbed until I rolled onto a flat section of the hull and stopped.

  For several seconds I lay there, as still as a dead
woman, staring up at the sky, mouth open but no breath capable of passing my frozen white lips.

  I’d just jumped from a building.

  I’d just jumped from a building.

  I wasn’t permitted to rest there for long.

  More visions kept assaulting me, the pain behind my left eye felt like a knife stabbing into the socket.

  I pulled myself up, my limbs shaking, but my body still moving forward.

  I stood, I stood on top of a freaking hovercraft as it moved in traffic hundreds upon hundreds of meters off the ground.

  I started to see other vessels flying near, the drivers and passengers pointing at me in surprise.

  The wind pounded into me. It was like standing in the sea as tidal wave after tidal wave slammed into my body.

  Somehow I managed to hold myself steady.

  Whoever was driving the transport I’d landed on had clearly been contacted by the other drivers, as slowly the vessel swung around and headed for the nearest port.

  There were small stations dotted along the sky bridges and platforms that ran around the towers, and transports and crafts could land there to unload their goods and passengers.

  My vessel moved toward the nearest one, with me still standing on top, my hair buffeting like crazy as the long slits of my tunic played around my pants.

  I must have looked crazy. Or incredible. Or both.

  This human woman without armor or protection standing on top of a transport vessel like she was riding a horse.

  I had no time to think of that.

  The vision kept playing in my mind.

  As soon as the vessel docked, I moved. With a run up, I jumped. Thankfully not off the vessel and down the side of the building.

  Instead, there was a small lip of metal to my left jutting out from one of the higher levels above me.

  If I’d been the ordinary Anna Carter who didn’t see things, I wouldn’t have managed that jump. Fear would have locked me in place.

  I wasn’t the ordinary Anna Carter anymore.

  I wasn’t in control of my body.

  As my mind focused on the vision playing over and over again, my limbs followed, and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

  My hand caught that lip of metal, and forcing my feet into the wall, I clambered until I pulled myself up and over the railing.

  It led to a small platform with a ladder that reached up to one of the levels above.

  I took it quickly, ascending the floor above long before I heard the worried calls from the transport below.

  They would be looking for me on the roof of their vessel, but I was already long gone.

  I paused just before I clambered off the ladder onto the next level of the building; I was waiting.

  The vision was telling me to wait.

  Soon enough I moved, and when I clambered out, no one was around.

  I shouldn’t be doing this.

  I paused, glancing toward the view with fear-filled white-rimmed eyes.

  The huge sprawling city lay before me, every tall spire and pillar-like building catching the light.

  I could not pause for long.

  The vision moved me.

  As it did, I regained enough control to open my lips a crack. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

  That thought echoed in my mind as I flung myself into a desperate run.

  Captain Fargo could help me, and now I was running away from him. I was also committing a crime.

  But could I stop myself?

  No.

  No matter how hard I tried to ground my feet into the metal walkway, it wouldn’t work. My muscles jerked forward with nervous tension, and it would have taken ropes or chains to hold me in place.

  I locked a hand on my stomach, my belly churning with fear and my eyes opening wide to survey the world around me.

  As I rounded a corner, I saw people. I wanted to shrink back, but my feet walked me forward.

  I was going mad – that had to be it. It was the only way to explain this.

  I’d just escaped the police station, and pretty soon they’d start looking for me, if they weren’t already. When they found me, all Fargo’s good will would be burnt up.

  I’d be treated like a criminal.

  There was no way this plan would work.

  Escape the police and find Hart – it was insane to even think it was possible. What did I think would happen? Hart – the most arrogant, rude man I’d ever met – would accept me with open arms?

  No. As soon as I found him, he would hand me back to the police.

  But could that sane, rational realization stop me?

  No.

  It seemed nothing could stop me.

  I kept dashing down the path, headed for a man I did not know, yet one the compulsion led me toward like a magnet attracted to a lodestone.

  The further I walked along the clean, smooth walkways of the upper towers, the more I realized this was insane.

  There was nothing I could do, though.

  Nothing I could do.

  …

  Captain Fargo

  None of this made any sense.

  I’d made a career in the Foundation Forces, and precious few crimes ever made any sense.

  I stood at the loading platform on one of the upper towers, staring at a transport captain as he stuttered about seeing a woman ride his ship.

  Miranda.

  The description fitted, and so did footage from ships that had passed the transport.

  The footage was bizarre.

  It showed Miranda in freefall, screaming for her life until she struck the roof of the transport, rolled down, and lay there for a few seconds.

  Then, like a seasoned thrill seeker, she stood up, wind whipping through her hair and clothes, her expression locked with panic and yet determination.

  I kept playing it over and over again, half staring at the footage on my wrist device as I kept the rest of my attention focused on the transport captain.

  A large fleshy alien with green dappled skin, he held his three fingered hands before himself, rubbing his wrists in nervous tension. “Nothing I could do,” he repeated for the hundredth time, “nothing I could do.”

  I finally tore my eyes off the footage and nodded at him. “I understand that. Thank you for your time. You may be contacted for an official witness report.” With a deep nod, I turned.

  I’d already put out a Cluster-wide warrant for Miranda’s arrest.

  It wouldn’t take long to capture her.

  Or at least that’s what my rational mind told me. My gut instinct knew it would be different.

  Nothing here was ordinary.

  Despite my enquiries, nobody had been able to locate the mysterious Lieutenant Mark Havelock.

  At first, I believed everything Miranda had said about him. Now, I was wondering whether they were working together.

  Though I entertained that thought, I had to admit it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t wash away the genuine surprise and fear Miranda had shown in my office when she talked of the so-called hospital she’d been held at.

  I clutched my jaw, letting my thumb and fingers dig hard into my chin. For a few seconds, I stared with an unfocused gaze at the view.

  The city.

  My city.

  Though it was true that the Illuminate’s ensured this universe enjoyed continuous peace, that peace was not always complete. They protected us all from the deadly enemies of the Gap, but that left all the ordinary enemies for men like me.

  Ordinary.

  My mind got stuck on that word, because none of this was goddamn ordinary.

  Something about Miranda – whether it be her expression, her story, or the way she’d sat there staring at me pleadingly – wasn’t right.

  That didn’t for a second mean I believed her claim that she was somehow Anna Carter.

  It made me wonder whether something equally as extraordinary was going on, though.

  As I walked away from the transport captain, I spied o
ne of my guards. I marched up to him. “Any news? Have you captured her yet?”

  The guard shook his head. “No news, sir.”

  I frowned. The transport captain had confirmed it had been barely half an hour since he’d spied Miranda. She was on foot, and unless she had help, she should still be around this section of the city.

  So she had to have help, right?

  If my people could not locate her, it meant she was long gone or she could disappear easily in one of the most secure cities in the universe.

  “Redouble efforts.” I turned to walk away. I stopped. I inclined my head to the left, a thought springing through my mind. “And inform the guards at the Illuminate palace.”

  “Sir?” The guard shot me a confused look.

  “Just do it.”

  He saluted.

  I turned away, walking with slow, cautious steps toward a viewing platform. Resting my elbows on the railing, I glanced across the city, my eyes soon locking onto the Illuminate tower. Built like a pillar of light, it was easily the most secure building on Cluster. And it wasn’t even the true palace of the Illuminates. It was simply the residence they used when they visited the Central System.

  The Illuminates had their own fleet. The most sophisticated, well-armed fleet in the entire universe. It outpaced even the Foundation Forces flagships.

  It had to.

  Without it, the Illuminates would not be able to keep back the Gap.

  So it sounded crazy to warn the Illuminate guards there may be trouble; there was precious little in this universe they couldn’t deal with.

  Yet I had to do it. The twitching, niggling, gurgling feeling in my gut told me to.

  Miranda was somehow convinced she was Anna Carter. But if I’d misjudged her character, and Miranda was a terrorist in cahoots with Lieutenant Mark Havelock, then there was every possibility she was going after Anna Carter.

  Hart and the other Illuminates should be able to protect his fiancée, but I would be negligent if I didn’t hand on the warning.

  As I turned from the view, I let my gaze dart over the closest platforms and sky bridges.

  I would find her.

  However long it took.