1480 words (5 minute read)

Trapped

10

trapped

 

 

 

“Do you seriously think this shit is going to work on me?” Goss asked.

They were inside the transport, the two scientists seated on the wall-mounted chairs while the Captain stood over them, glowering.  Black stood at his side with her semi-automatic rifle casually slung and hanging near her waist.  The late morning sun cast the soldiers in silhouette so their shadowed bodies seem to float in a hazy golden sea. 

“And what ‘shit’ are you referring to, Captain?” Lee said without any attempt to mask her contempt or sarcasm. 

“Watch your tone,” he snapped.  “And don’t play dumb with me.  You’re trying to sabotage this mission.  You’re trying to make it look like you’re doing your job when in fact you’re trying to avoid it.  That’s why this one is doing her Crazy Bitch act.”

“If we were trying to sabotage this mission,” Lee said, “why would we go through this elaborate....?”

“Because if you just refused I’d have you shot,” he said, and the distant and cold nature with which he acknowledged how easily he’d order their execution sent a gust of ice across the two women.  “But if you play like you’re trying and it just didn’t happen to work, well, maybe, you think, the stupid Captain won’t have Black put a round in the back of each of your heads.”  He smiled.  “Except that I’m not stupid.  Your little game isn’t going to work.  And I’d never have Black shoot you in the back of the head when a bullet in the face would do.”

Cole felt Lee shudder beside her.  Surprisingly, none of Goss’ threats seemed to affect Cole.  There were far more terrifying things than he.

“So here’s what’s going to happen,” Goss continued when Lee didn’t offer any sort of rebuttal.  “This bullshit stops, and it stops now.  Your window to get the Engine up and running is rapidly narrowing, and if you don’t get your shit together and get it done you’re going to find yourselves the unfortunate victims of a terrorist attack.  Or maybe you’ll disappear in the storm.  Either way, you won’t be going home.”

“It’s not an act,” Cole said quietly.  She sat with her head against the wall, the only means she’d found that actually combated the pulsing headache behind her eye, so she didn’t see the Captain’s face so much as heard it, a sharp inhalation through his nose, because, she imagined, his jaw clenched so hard he was about to break his teeth.

“So you’re really crazy, is that it?” he said.  “Listen, you little cunt, you may have fooled those head-shrinkers back in New Texas, but you don’t fool me…”

“So she’s always been faking it, that’s what you’re saying?” Lee barked.  “Now she’s a terrorist?”

“You said it,” Goss said.  “That’s a capital offense…”

“I didn’t say I’m crazy,” Cole said. 

Silence.  Cole’s face ached where she’d opened the wounds, and a bead of sticky sweat rolled down her cheek.  Black’s snicker finally broke the spell.  After a moment, Goss joined in with a banal laugh.

“So something actually attacked you?” he mocked.  “Something no one else could see.  You said it was, what...a witch?  Is that right?”  He laughed again.  Cole felt Lee’s hand sneak into hers from next to her, and she gripped it tight.  “If you actually expect me to believe that, then you are crazy.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Cole said distantly.  She felt half-awake, and her own words seem to come from far away, like she spoke from inside a dream.  “I don’t know what’s real.”

For just a second, Goss’ cruel laughter ceased.  She glanced up at him and saw him watch her with genuine confusion, bordering on concern.  But only for a second.

“Do your job,” he said.  “Time is running out.  Get that Engine running.  If it’s working properly it should keep the next storm from even arriving.”

He turned to go but stopped when Cole tiredly spoke again.  “It won’t work,” she said.  “We’ve been trying to tell you.  This Zone is...wrong, somehow.  Spoiled.”

He turned, exasperated.  “Jesus, you’re reaching...and what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know,” Cole said.  “It’s hard to explain.  The numbers just don’t add up.”  He waved her away dismissively.  “I’m serious,” she said, and Cole rose, dizzy and unstable.  The attack had left her exhausted and drained, like she hadn’t slept in days, like she was recovering from mono all over again, days of bedridden pain and sweat leaving her half a corpse through her entire second semester at college.  “This place should be perfect.  The Republic scientists weren’t wrong, or lying, like I’d thought.  On paper, Zone 66 is an ideal area to build a Bridge.”

Goss gave Black a glance.  To Cole’s relief they both looked like they were actually listening to her.  “Okay, I’ll bite,” he said.  “Then what’s the problem?”

“The quantum grid is fluctuating,” Cole said.  “It’s unstable, but only when we attempt to make changes to it.  Almost like it’s actively resisting us.”

“That’s ridiculous…”

“No, she’s right,” Lee said, and she stood up and walked over, for which Cole was grateful, not just for support in defending their case but also because it meant she could lean on the smaller woman.  “I saw it in the biometric readings of the few reptiles we’ve encountered here, as well.  They’ve adapted to the unstable fields, but it’s left their bio-signatures erratic.  Partially in flux.  They almost registered as non-living, because I think they don’t exist in a stable quantum field.  They shift along with this place.”

Goss stared at them both, but not, Cole thought, in rage, which was a nice first.  Jones and Diaz were in the cockpit, no longer busying themselves with trying to act like they were busy and not eavesdropping.

“How is that possible?” Goss asked.

“There’s so much we don’t understand about the Zones,” Cole said.  “We don’t even really know how they come into existence, only that they make ideal locations for the Bridges, because in order to create a wormhole you have to start with an area of quantum and temporal instability.  We can’t just craft them anywhere.  But Zone 66...Rawlins saw it, too, in the size and speed of the storms, and that darkness that’s been hanging in the air behind us.  He didn’t know what that was.  He’d never seen anything like it.”  She looked at each of the soldiers in turn.  “No one has.”  She let that sink in.  “Look, I know how this sounds…”

“Like a giant wad of Grade A Bullshit?” Goss said, but Cole kept going.

“...and I won’t stand here and try to tell you I didn’t just hallucinate the attack.  In fact, I’m almost positive I did.  I’ve been dealing with this...with her...my whole life.  For all I know I did this to myself,” she said as she pointed at her freshly opened face wounds, “and convinced myself it was done to me, but that doesn’t matter.  Whether you think I’m lying or crazy or whatever, you have to listen to me: if we try to turn on that Engine and normalize the quantum fields in Zone 66 we will all die.  If the Engine doesn’t have a catastrophic error and explode when it can’t sync the unstable fields then the Zone will kill us itself.  Can’t you feel how wrong this place is?!  That fucking black curtain isn’t some lightwave anomoly, God-damn it, it’s a doorway to something evil!”

Cole was screaming by the time she finished, and nearly in tears. 

“Easy,” Lee said, and she put her arm around Cole’s shoulder to try and comfort her.  “Easy…”

Goss watched her in silence for a moment, and then slowly clapped his hands.

“You have my vote for the awards ceremony,” he said.  “Nice try.”  He stepped close, so close she smelled his stale breath.  “Now do your fucking job.”

“You’ll kill us all.”

“No, just you two,” he said.  “This is too important.  We will not fail.  You’ll turn that Engine on, or I’ll make sure Lee dies slowly.”  Cole’s heart skipped.  She felt Lee’s grip tighten.  “We both know she’s no longer needed.  Now it’s all down to Rianne Cole.  Her life is in your hands.”

Goss turned and left, and the three soldiers followed suit, all but Black, who watched them piteously a moment before she followed Goss down the ramp.

Cole couldn’t move.  She felt Lee next to her, holding her up and quietly sobbing in fear.