The Time Voyager's Obsession

Duplicity- II

*Trigger warning: this chapter features physical violence and is intended for a mature audience only

Somehow, someway he had managed to bring his words to fruition. “Whatever happens, don’t leave your cell...I will come...be ready,” he had instructed her. Well, Hana was certainly fulfilling her end of the bargain. She was not going anywhere fast with a broken rib. Her consciousness ebbed and flowed, slipping through her fingers before returning again with a wave of nausea. Part of her worried she was bleeding internally, and that it was her life force she felt waning. She dismissed the thought from her mind, suddenly desperate to live. Her eyes flicked up, taking in the frantic conversation unfolding before her.

“Get us out of here dammit!” Filo tantrumed like a petulant child, gripping the Warden’s shoulders with pale knuckles. The whites of his eyes flashed with unbridled fear. Hana’s lips twisted into a pained sneer. It was thrilling to see the emotion reflected in Filo’s face for a change.

“As I’ve said, the system is on lockdown. My security clearance is reading invalid, so it’s impossible for me to disengage its operating protocol from the inside. I would have to gain direct access to the mainframe to reboot the system. This is a planned attack, Envoy. We need to keep our heads. Now stand down, before I make you stand down,” he snapped in disgust, thrusting FIlo backwards.

The envoy tensed but obeyed, pacing the cell’s confines like a caged animal. In the turmoil he seemed to have forgotten about Hana altogether. All that he could think of was his own self preservation. The man was selfish to the last. Hana dragged herself across the floor, biting down on her lip to keep from crying out. If there was any kind of physical altercation, it would be best if she hid beneath her bunk, avoiding any collateral damage that might be inflicted.

“Move another inch and I’ll snap a second rib, girl,” the Warden growled. Hana glowered up at him but fell still, flattening her beaten body to the floor. She would wait until he was distracted to start moving again. Somehow she managed to remain calm, despite her physical distress. Var was coming for her, she knew it down deep in her bones. All she had to do was be patient and wait. He was coming for her, and then her captors would pay. She could practically picture him tearing down block F, eyes hellbent, a nearly palpable wrath enveloping him.

“Can’t you at least alter the Bioscreen’s audio settings? We need to know what’s happening out there, man!” Filo queried, swiping a hand through his coiffed hair as he attempted to regain his lost authority.

The Warden’s brow furrowed as he modified the settings on his wrist console. All at once, noise erupted from outside the cell, the structured prison seeming to have devolved into chaos. The sound of weaponry thundered beyond the metal barrier, round after round emptied upon some unseen enemy. Blood curdling screams and cries of anguish permeated through the walls as though they were made of paper instead of steel. Hana crept forward again, inching ever closer to her bunk. Her movement went unnoticed, the two men thoroughly horrified by whatever terror had been unleashed upon Mala Fide.

“All hells,” Filo breathed to the sound of the c*****e, unfolding beyond the cell’s walls.

“Hawchek, do you copy?” the Warden demanded into his transmitter. “Officer Hawchek...Hawchek do you read?” His call fell on deaf ears, answered only by the crackle of static. “Benson, do you copy? Repeat, Benson, do you copy?” he appealed on a different frequency. That line, too, fizzled out with no reply.

“Either they’ve disabled communications or we’re in deep s**t,” the Warden said ominously, his eyes falling to Hana. “No need to look so pleased, Ms. Dari. I can promise you, I’ll put a shot right through your brains before I let you walk out of this cell.”

Filo looked up in shock, his attention returning to Hana for the first time since the alarm had sounded. “That’s enough-” he began, the Warden cutting him off at the legs.

“You too, pretty boy,” he snarled, drawing his weapon from its holster with deadly speed. He lay the blaster’s muzzle against Filo’s temple. “All of your daddy’s money can’t save us now, and I won’t lose any sleep at night putting you down. Stay out of my way and keep your mouth shut.” The Warden released him from his sights with a scoff. Filo had grown visibly pale, and he slunk dejectedly to a far corner of the cell to sulk in his cowardice.

All had grown eerily silent when the sudden sound of wrenching metal filled the cell. With a groan, the steel barrier began to rise, Hana’s rapt attention focused on its upward ascent. Her heart plummeted when the Bioscreen revealed an empty hallway. Perhaps whatever disruption had come to pass, had just as quickly been resolved. As though stirred by her doubts, the cell doors flew open without warning. Before Hana could register any movement, a shot rang out. She looked to the Warden, fearing that the man had already mowed down her lone hope of salvation. His blaster was still pointed down at the floor having never been fired. From his chest, blood poured out in red waves, it’s spray coating his horrified face. Desperate hands fluttered against the gaping hole before dropping away limply. His body collapsed to the floor, convulsing a few times then falling still. Where once the blood of D-14’s former inmate had painted the cell with gore, so now did the Warden’s.

Hana was still staring at the flowing ocean of red when a blade was thrust beneath her chin.

“Come any closer and she dies,” Filo warned, pulling Hana’s aching body towards him possessively. Somehow he had connected that the silent intruder had come in search of her. Hana’s eyes hovered on the doorway. The hallway beyond was obscured by a smoky haze, bodies and debris littering the floor like a war zone. A spectral silhouette stood in contrast to the unnatural fog. His leg dragged as he limped forward into the light.

“Get your filthy hands off of her, Belias!” Var growled, his figure gaunt from malnourishment, but his face ready for a fight. Blood seeped through the fabric at his knee, a makeshift bandage wrapped around the injury. The poor man looked as though he’d brought the entire prison down himself. For all that Hana knew, perhaps he had. Of one thing she was certain, she was glad to see him.

“You came,” she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper. She could not manage anything more, her chest was burning as though it had been lit on fire.

“I came,” he confirmed, his eyes growing soft at the sight of her. He turned his gaze back to Filo, black with fury. “You will pay for this,” he promised.

“Who in all hells are you?” Filo snapped, his voice breaking like an adolescent boy’s. “And how do you know my betrothed?”

“I need not reveal myself to the likes of you. How dare you call her that with a blade pressed to her throat? Bring anymore harm down upon her and I will gut you like the animal you are,” Var swore menacingly.

“I will call her whatever I like, she is mine,” Filo raged, pulling Hana in closer. She gasped in pain, a void of blackness threatening to take her.

“She belongs to no man!” Var cried, incensed. “Release her and I will spare your life. It is more mercy than a beast like you deserves.”

Filo scanned the cell, the cogs of his mind spinning as he contemplated his next move. “Alright,” he spat finally, forcing Hana to rise with him. She moaned in pain, but followed his lead, anxious to leave his suffocating embrace. Walking proved to be excruciating, so Hana focused on Var’s outstretched hand to keep from falling. His blaster remained poised on Filo, but his anxious gaze never left Hana. As they neared, she extended her hand to him, fingers brushing lightly against Var’s own calloused ones. His touch seemed to ignite something inside of her, pulling at her heart with an invisible tether.

Suddenly Filo thrust Hana to the side, and from there everything deteriorated quickly. Her body, too broken to remain upright, crashed into the ledge of the bunk, just out of the range of Var’s reach. Hana screamed as her side made contact with the rigid metal. In the same moment, Filo swung his foot into Var’s injured knee, knocking the weakened limb out from under him. His blaster fired into thin air, its shot ricocheting off the Bioscreen. As Var flattened to avoid the rogue blast, Filo fell upon him. Pinning down the blaster, the envoy stabbed at his throat viciously, terrible gurgling sounds issuing from the dying man’s lips.

“No!” Hana croaked weakly, “No! No! Please, no!” She crawled towards Var, a hand clutched around her battered rib cage. She laced her fingers in his as he hemorrhaged blood. He died without uttering another word, his glassy eyes locked on Hana. Though she knew next to nothing about the prisoner, Hana still felt his loss acutely. A deep grief welled up within her, the likes of which she had not experienced since the deaths of her parents. Ragged sobs tore painfully from her chest, giving way to an irrepressible fury.

“Enough!” Filo snapped, reaching for Hana’s arm. “You have caused me enough grief to last a lifetime-”

Hana blinked and she was gone, the cell a distant memory. The astral plane surged before her, stars, planets, and entire systems reduced to nothing more than streams of light. Hana knew where she was going before she saw it, the darkness reaching out to her across the heavens. The void yawned wide, synchronizing its pulsating energy with her own fragile heartbeat. From some other place, some other time, she heard Var’s voice.

“I love you Hana. I have always loved you, and always will. I have loved you in every lifetime, defying the bounds of time, space, and dimension. I have defied death itself to hold you for a single moment. In every form, every parallel of existence, I have loved you. With each rebirth I have found you. I will always find you. I am coming, be ready.”

Then she was back, her eyes gazing through the translucent glass of the Bioscreen. Yet this time was different. This time Filo was within the cell, and she was without. Even the burning pain in her side could not dim the smile brought to her lips.

“How- how did you do that?” Filo stuttered, his eyes wide with fright. Hana’s gaze fell to Var, his lifeless body still sprawled out on the unforgiving floor, a pool of blood encircling him like a halo. Had it all been just a daydream? A vision? If so, then how had she moved through the barrier? In that moment, none of it mattered. Filo had taken so much from her, now she would repay him tenfold. Limping forward, she examined the cell’s control panel.

“What are you doing, Hana?” Filo asked slowly, pressing his hands flat against the glass. “This isn’t you, none of this is you! You would never knowingly hurt anyone! Stop! Think about what you’re becoming! What would your parents think of you now?”

“You know, Filo, you were always bright. Even in our childhood, you were always so eager to learn. I hate to see you brought so low,” Hana quoted his words back to him darkly. “It’s time for a new lesson, Filo. Time to... expand your mind.”

“No!” he screeched before she dialed the UF emitters to full blast. The cell fell silent. Hana looked at it like a work of art, her portrait of pain. Crossing her arms, she watched Filo writhe on the ground, just as she had only hours before. She switched off the emitters, waiting for him to recover so she had his full attention.

“Such a shame, I had hoped to spare you some suffering. I encourage you to consider your life without my helpful intervention,” she mocked him with more of his cruel taunts. She turned the UF emitters on again before he had time to respond. A pained laugh erupted from her chest, followed by another, and another, until her laughter turned to heaving sobs. The mouth of the darkness gaped wide and she was falling through it, the vast nothingness enveloping her.

“Hana!” a voice behind her demanded in a tone her heart knew well. She turned, her body shaking with disbelief.

“Var?” she questioned, scarcely trusting in her own eyes. She turned to the cell. His body was still spread out across the floor, his life force surrounding him in death. She looked back to the ghost, her eyes roving over him. He was Var, and yet markedly different. Where Var had been neglected to the point of starvation, the man before her was all brawn and roped muscle. He towered over her, his face fierce. Instead of Var’s sallowed skin, the stranger was browned from the sun, his intense eyes standing out in sharp contrast against its golden hew. Something in him intimidated Hana, a dangerous nature that she had not sensed in his past self. An angry scar cut a path through his furrowed brow, trailing down his left cheek. Hana took a step back, suddenly unsure if the man was Var at all.

“Is it really you?” she whispered with a wince.

“I have no time to explain now,” he replied irritably, as though she had not watched him die before her very eyes. “We must go, your injuries require attention.” He glanced into the cell where Filo was raking at his own skin. “A queen does not waste her energy torturing ants,” he said looking on with disdain.

“Well, I’m no queen,” Hana snapped at him. She could not remember finding her Var so annoying or patronizing.

“No, I suppose not,” he said, studying her sadly. Hana was taken aback by the stranger’s change in tone. In what way had she wounded him?

“Do as you will with him, but let us go,” he said, the gruffness returning to his voice. Hana’s hand fluttered over the UF emitters, hesitating as she swallowed down her bitterness. She turned the knobs back to zero, ending Filo’s torture. In a final moment of spite, she cut the cell’s lights, plunging her captive into darkness. She would leave the coward to wallow in his fear.

She stood before the black cell, shoulders sagging. “Do we just leave him there like that?” she asked softly, thinking of her Var trapped within the lightless purgatory.

“He was weak,” was all the stranger returned with. “He could not have saved you, and is undeserving of your sympathy.”

“How can you say that!” Hana fired back, gritting her teeth against the stabbing pain of her sudden movement. “How can you be so cruel? You didn’t know him.”

“There is no time for this!” the stranger roared, “I am him and he is me, can’t you see that? Does a left hand not know the feel of its right? Do you not recognize your own mirrored image in a looking glass? I know him all too well. I say leave him there to rot! You would be dead if left to his fumbling efforts.”

Hanna was shocked by the man’s harsh words, but he cut her off before she had time to question him further. “We leave now, grab hold of my arm.” She hesitated, wincing as he wrapped his powerful forearm about her waist. Hana gasped as the air began to crackle with energy, unknitting before her very eyes. The threads of the universe unwound to swallow the voyagers whole. Leaving the old world behind them, they entered into the new.