Chapter Two

Everything went dark, then swirling, then my stomach twisted… I couldn’t help it. Sickness was not a thing I could ever stand.

I vomited where I had no idea.

The bottom of my ass tingled, and that tingle ran up my spine to the back of my neck.

It turned from tingling to stabbing, and my whole body spasmed.

I tried to fight the hands that had grabbed me.

It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

I was getting eaten! This was the mirror’s stomach.

One

The sickness settled, and the hand held onto me tightly. “I got you.”

I knew that voice… I did.

Transfer complete.

Alarms blared, and my eyes struggled with the bright lights above me. I tried to focus. The room around me spun wildly, and nausea washed over me again. “What the?”

“Kade?” a gruff voice asked. “You with me?”

The room still spun, those bright lights assaulting my vision. I tried to shield them, to see. “What? What is this… Steve?”

Boxes of text filled my vision. I tried to blink them away but couldn’t. It made the view in front of me even more difficult.

“The system’s trying to figure you out. Swipe the notices away. We don’t have time.”

“What the fuck was that?” I struggled to even comprehend anything he was saying. “What is this?”

I tried swiping the boxes away, and to my surprise, I got them. They slid out of the way, just a blinking icon in the corner of my vision. Then I could see… Steve…. Holy shit…

Where the fuck was I.

This…

I scanned the room. It was not a room. It was the deck of a spaceship. Was this some kinda VR?

“Incoming Missiles Detected.” A somewhat robotic female voice said.

Steve turned away and shouted over the alarms. “Evasive manoeuvres, Jen, now.”

Then he was back in my face. “Did you carry on playing SpaceShips Online?”

What a question… I shook my head. “No, Steve, what is this?”

The floor vanished from underneath us as explosion after explosion blasted my ear drums.

“Fuck!” Steve said and let go of me. Then he floated away…

I was surprised when I didn’t hit the floor myself. I stayed floating.

Steve, however, had done it. He’d pushed away from me and was moving to what looked like the command chair—

Then I saw the rest of it… in front of us on a screen as wide as the room. That wasn’t glass, right? Fuck, if it was glass!

In front of us was the largest, well, the only spaceship I’d ever seen that wasn’t in a game. It came into view with lasers sparking, and its sights were centered straight at us.

“Steve…” My voice was shaking… I was shaking. No, the whole fucking ship was shaking!

“I’ve got this,” he said. Though he was frantically smashing buttons on the arms of his chair.

It didn’t look like he got this at all.

The spark turned into a beam, and it fired. Then it stopped dead, lighting space before us in firey death.

“Shield holding,” the robot woman said.

“Not for long,” Steve said, his hands working faster than I had ever seen anyone move. That wasn’t humanly possible. That was too fast.

“Shields at sixty percent.”

The red hot burning flame stayed on the shield but sparked blue lightening all around it.

“Shields at fifty percent.”

“Come on, Steve, do something!” I said, even if floating around here made me want to throw up again.

“I’m trying!”

“Shields at thirty-two percent.”

“Dammit,” Steve said, standing and moving to another console, again smashing keys.

“Missile’s launching.”

The man before me straightened himself up as several rockets launched from somewhere, speeding towards the ship before us.

I could do nothing but try and slow my breathing. It wasn’t working.

“Missile strike in thirty seconds.”

“Shields at eighteen percent.”

“Where will it hit?” Steve asked.

“Engineering bay two.”

“I need to get down there.”

“You cannot leave the bridge,” the voice said.

Steve made to move, though, yet as I turned, doors behind me closed.

“Jen,” open the doors.

“No.”

“I order you to—”

Was he arguing with a computer?

“I said no,” Jen said. “Shields at four percent.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Steve turned to see, his face paled. We both watched in horror as that laser tore through our shields with a massive blast of excess sparks and flames.

There was no explosion this time, as it obviously hit the ship.

“Engineering Bay two is hit.”

Steve’s shoulder fell, but the missiles he sent in retaliation at the ship struck hard. It literally blew everything that ship was into a million pieces. The debris shooting everywhere.

“Damage report,” Steve said, sitting back in his chair.

“We have taken significant damage to all systems. System failure in twenty-four hours.”

He looked up at me. The teenager I once knew was gone. “Restore gravity to the bridge.”

“That will reduce life expectancy—”

“Jen,” he said, his voice cold. “Do it now.”

“Gravity will increase over the next five minutes.”

It did. It was a gentle, pleasant, and steady drift back down to the floor, ugh, the deck.

I stood, though my back was complaining still from moving into our new apartment.

Steve carried on with his assessment of the ship. Though I knew nothing of what he was doing. I watched Steve for a minute, his left hand rubbing his face.

Was he older than me? He had more than a couple of gray hairs, a stubbly gray beard, and he was dressed in what I could only describe as a skin-tight uniform. There were no other identifying markers to him, only the fact I knew his voice, that twinkle in his eyes. “Steve?” I probed gently.

He looked up at me and stopped rubbing his face. “Kade,” he said and stood. To my surprise, he came at me and threw his arms around me, hugging me tight. “You have no idea what I’ve done to get back here to you.”

I swallowed and awkwardly hugged him back. “If we only have twenty-four hours and ten years to catch up on…” I cajoled. “Better get started now.”

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he said, stepping back and looking me up and down.

“Liar. I know I have,” I pushed out my chest, my muscles… “You’ve gone grey.”

“Dick,” he said. Then he laughed, though softly. “You really haven’t changed.”

Silence spread between us…

“Come on,” he indicated the doors behind us. “I need to see the damage below. I’ll try and explain on the way.”

I blew out a breath, and when he moved, I followed.

“Just ask; I don’t know where to begin,” he said.

“Where are we?” I asked first. “How?”

The corridor out from the bridge was vaguely reminiscent of a hospital corridor. Just wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

“You’re on my ship, the last remaining vessel of the Hollow Division.” He patted the wall as he passed a closed doorway. A soft red light blinked above it, and he frowned. “The computer system, Jen, manages most of the tasks, but the—”

“Don’t tell me the ships named Goliath?”

His lip curled into a smile, then a grin. “Things really don’t change much, you remember?”

“Of course I do. You would never have it any other way, no matter what faction we played..”

“Yes, Jen manages the Goliath. Though he’s not much of a giant against their ships.”

“Who are they, are more coming? My heart rate sped up… I could see it in the dam corner of my view….

98bpm.

This was so weird.

“The Railis,” Steve said, tapping the side of his head. “Those who created the system.”

“So, those boxes in my head are real?”

“Yes, and they are part of the system they use to govern and manage all of us.” Steve stopped by a door, put his palm to a panel, and waited.

“The System? You mean it’s really like a computer game?”

Steve slammed the panel again. “Jen?”

“It’s coming; we’re struggling for power.”

Steve cursed. At least, I thought it was a curse. It wasn’t a language I knew. “Save as much as you can,” he said. “We’ll take the aqueduct.”

The light on the door stopped blinking.

Steve moved to the other side of the corridor where and opened a panel. When he turned to climb inside, he stared at me. “Still don’t like heights either?”

I shook my head; not if it’s as deep as I think.”

“You’ll be okay. It’s not too far down. Just take your time. I’ll wait for you.”

He vanished from sight then, and I moved to peer into the duct. It wasn’t a long way down my arse…. If you recall those movies where it zooms in and out the more you look. Yeah, that’s what I face now… I had to force myself to look at Steve instead as he climbed down, slow and steady. I watched him move further away from me, giving me no choice but to follow.

I edged over, fear gripping me, and my hands shook. Slowly I dropped to the ladder, then rung by rung crept down. It took me forever, but pretty sure it wasn’t much more than a few minutes till I reached the bottom, and like he said, Steve stood waiting for me.

“What’s in Engineering Bay 2?” I asked.

Steve’s face fell once more. This time it paled, and he looked as if he were going to throw up. When he spun around and gagged, I didn’t want to see, but I also couldn’t turn away. He was my friend.

His vomit struck the deck and splattered everywhere. Lights at the side of the corridor lit. “Leave it, Jen, later.” He pushed himself up and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Ugh. “My friends are in there,” he said, turned, and opened the panel before him.

This was a different corridor with only one doorway at the end.

Once we were moving again and the door behind us closed, it was clear that something was severely off down here.

Steve moved quickly to another panel and pulled it off. “Engineering is compromised. I can seal down here so we don’t lose too much extra atmosphere, but you’ll have to suit up.”

“As in an EMU?”

“Extravehicular mobility unit,” Steve nodded. “Games never failed us, right?”

I laughed at that. “I have no idea how to do that.”

“They’re pretty easy. I’ll help. Don’t worry.”

I watched him pull out what looked like a sizeable old-fashioned boiler suit. “Just unzip and climb in like a plastic rain suit.”

I watched as he did just that. He unzipped it from the collar and stepped inside, boots and all.

I was only in jeans, a shirt, a jacket, and trainers. But I guessed that was okay. Once inside it, it surprised me by making awful sucking sounds and compressing around me. “Yikes,” I said.

Steve moved his hand up to the collar. “Touch here; it will then encompass your head, like this…” he did so though I couldn’t see anything till he moved in the light. “See it now?”

I nodded and did as he’d said.

Cold spread up my neck, then all over my head, but it didn’t seem like anything visually had changed till I moved too. There was a slight sheen to the world around us. Blue, not greenish.

“Gloves are here,” Steve returned to the panel and handed me a pair. I slipped them on. I mean, who didn’t know how to put those on….

“You should be good to go; there’s only one way to check. Think the words - System - Check suit. Then tell me what you see?”

I thought the words, and they screened across in front of me.

System checking EMU - Wait.

System check complete - EMU is 100%.

Steve raised his thumbs up at me, and I did the same even if I could talk to him, though I’d no idea how.

“Ready?” he asked. “There will be no gravity here, but the boots keep you on the deck. I just have to see and then work out what we need to do to fix things.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m ready.”

I really wasn’t. Who the fuck was I kidding? He was taking me into a room that had just been laser blasted that had his friends inside? What were we entering? What devastation.

It was less than five seconds, and I had a full view of that devastation.

The ample space opened up before us, the atmosphere rushing past, I presumed, just straight out into space. Nothing stopped it if the shields were down.

Steve shot off into the center of the room to what looked like a large circular table. He put his hand to it, even with gloves on, and it came to life. A large flat keyboard in some kind of weird language popped up?

He didn’t have any issues using it, though. The room around us, I presume, had been smoke-filled, even if it was heading straight out the hole in the hull, lit up.

I turned around slowly, not able to turn my neck to see. The room was… the size of a stadium… holy moly.

We were at the center in what also looked a little like a bubble? It had several wall units to one side of it, not wall units, pods?

I’d seen enough Sci-Fi movies and played enough games to know what they were. Life pods.

I counted them, thirteen. Though the last one I got to wasn’t the same color as the others. Where they had a nice blue tinge to them, this one was red. “Steve?” I probed, looking back at him.

Steve looked at the pod. “There’s nothing I can do,” he said his voice barely a whisper. “She’s dead.”

“She?” I hadn’t been able to tell. There was the basic image of something inside; that was all.

Steve crumpled to the deck, and I wondered what the hell to do. I didn’t know this man. I didn’t know what he’d been through in the last ten years, almost as much as he knew nothing of my life. But seeing his hands on the deck in such distress. I went to him, and I knelt at his side. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“I promised them,” he said. “I promised them I’d get them somewhere safe.”

“I’m sure you did your best,” I said. He always did that. One thing I did know, he never gave up.

“I didn’t. I knew they were following us, but I saw your beacon light up. I’ve waited for that for so long…. I never thought I’d see you again.”

I didn’t understand.

Steve just nodded at me. Closed his eyes a moment. “Stopping to let the mirror lock in on the ship gave them time to catch us.”

I just listened. “Then I’m the one that should be sorry.”

“No,” he said and pushed himself up. “Give me a minute. Let me try diverting some power from one of our generators to shields. At least I can try and patch the hole for now.”

I glanced at the dead pop, “What about your friends?”

He moved back to the keyboard and started typing. “They’re okay for now. If I can stabilize us, I can see what other things we need and take it from there.”

“What can I do?” I had no idea. I was out of my depth, any depth.

He looked at me and feigned a smile. “Not much till I get you some basic upgrades. You can’t read the language, right?”

I looked at his screens and shook my head. “Yeah, just all look like aliens to me.”

“Why don’t you take a seat. Look through your system. Figure out what you want to ask me?” He pointed to a seat at the other side of the desk.

“I guess, so I’d probably just annoy you if I started jabbering now.”

He smiled. “Once the rooms are stable, I’ll answer anything you wish.”

“Understood.”

I sat, and though I watched him, I thought about what I’d said before to access the system.

“System,” I paused. “View my details?”

I waited.

When the boxes popped back into view, I could at least read them without worrying about what was blowing up around me.