Chapter 14
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S teele turned as Cyan arrived at his side. “You know it’s the right thing to do.”
She shrugged. “Nothing is right when it comes to this mess,” she grumbled, “but neither can I let you go in there alone.”
“You could.”
“No,” she snapped, “apparently I can’t. I gave you too much energy while you were down and out, so now there’s a connection between us that I can’t easily get rid of.
At least not in a couple minutes,” she muttered.
“So, if something happens to you, it’ll happen to me too, regardless.
So I would just as soon be in control of my life if it’s about to go tits up, so to speak. ”
He burst out laughing at that, earning a glare from her.
“You could be a little quieter.”
“Nope. Better to be heard now so we can find out if someone is here.”
“And if they are, then what?” she asked, turning to him. “Especially if they aren’t friendly.”
“I suggest that we head over to the gate and see if we can make our way through again. Then check to see if anybody has gone through and see what the other side looks like now.”
She shook her head but followed him anyway. She kept up her guard the entire way.
As Steele glanced at her, he noted, “You’ll burn out your energy as well as yourself if you do that.”
She didn’t even try to not understand what he was saying. “I’m not dropping my guard.”
“Then don’t,” he replied. “Never go against your instincts.”
When they got to the gate, she stared at it and shook her head. “It hasn’t been opened.” Surprised, he looked at her, and she shrugged and explained, “I can tell that it’s still the same energy. No others touched it.”
“Why not?”
“Because they can’t see it,” she snapped. “And, if they can’t see it, they don’t have the ability to get through it,” she added. “Even if we opened it for them, they wouldn’t get through.”
He just nodded, staring at the gate, and asked, “So, is the Beacon bringing people to the gate as a test? And then, when they can’t make it any farther, the Beacon boots them out?
Or this person made it in, but he couldn’t get out?
… But why? Or is it because, like us, we couldn’t easily see the gate on our way back out either? ”
She snorted. “I think you’re giving that person and the Beacon way too much intelligence.”
“I’m not giving either any intelligence,” he replied. “I’m just trying to sort out what filters the Beacon may have, working for or against it.”
“Whatever it is, those filters are a little more suspicious than I would have expected,” she declared, as she stared at the gate. “But, for God’s sake, either go in or leave it be,” she stated irritably.
He immediately opened the gate, and they stepped through. As soon as they got to the other side, they both looked around the place, then back at each other.
“It looks the same,” Cyan said.
He nodded. “Agreed.”
“Good,” she muttered. “That makes me feel so much better.” When he gave her a droll look, she sighed. “You know, you’re not the easiest person to get along with.”
“Neither are you,” he stated.
She didn’t say anything because she already knew that was true. This whole scenario made her nervous, and, because she didn’t want to show it, it also made her a little bitchier than she wanted to be.
As soon as they were on the other side and walking toward the next gate, she pointed out, “I thought we were here for the other guy, but he didn’t get this far.”
“If he didn’t get this far, chances are, he’s doing just fine on his own.” Then Steele frowned. “If we both hadn’t heard that laughter, I would say he was long gone. However, if he was here, and if his energy isn’t attached to either of the gates, how did he leave?”
“Terk needs to know about that,” she stated.
“Well, you figure out how to contact him, and we’ll tell him.”
She had to laugh in spite of herself. “ Right . And you’re correct in that I am allowing it to freak me out. An awful lot of energy is flying around here, and I don’t understand whose, and I can’t tell why.”
“It is also very… AI-ish.”
She groaned. “I’m not a real big fan of AI,” she declared. “I live in the world of all weird stuff way too much as it is.”
“Are you a government agent?”
“No,” she snapped. “Terk wanted me to be, and I said absolutely no way. Now that he’s private, it’s still a no. What about you?”
“No,” he said, with a chuckle, “same thing. MI6 wanted me, but I’ve no intentions of working with the government.
I have done a lot of work for a lot of different clients, and it’s hard enough to keep that on the up-and-up.
I can’t imagine working for the government, where they don’t have the same morals and ethics that I work from. ”
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” she agreed, turning to him.
“People want you to do all kinds of stuff, and they offer you all kinds of money to do it. And you convince them that you can’t do it because you have no clue what they’re talking about, since you don’t want any of them to know what you can do.
” He didn’t say anything for a long while, and then he added, “You’ve had some pretty bad experiences, huh ? ”
“Yeah, I have,” she muttered, “and, no, I’m not talking about them.”
He smiled. “I wasn’t even going to ask. It’s obvious you have some issues.”
She rolled her eyes and declared, “We all have issues, but, when it comes to crap like this, some things are bigger than just issues .”
“They are, indeed,” he agreed, “and I’m not trying to minimize that.”
“Good thing,” she snapped, glaring at him, “because I don’t take kindly to people mocking what has been a series of ordeals in my life.”
“Exactly. So, could we, like, possibly just dial back some of the aggression and relax a little bit? I’m not trying to tell you what to do or how to do it.
I would just like to think that we could get through this without leaving me walking on eggshells, watching everything I say, for fear of you jumping all over me and distracting us both from the task at hand. ”
“Yeah, sure ,” she snapped. “You want us to get along? Well, guess what? You need to get along too.”
“Agreed,” he said immediately. “I apologize.”
She stared at him and then chuckled. “Yeah, so, that might be possible.”
Choosing to refocus, he pointed up ahead. “Look. We’ve reached a third gate.”
She walked up to it and immediately stepped through, unconcerned as to whether he followed her or not. Yet he was right there when she turned around. They continued to find the fourth gate.
Steele frowned at it. “I would have had more trouble finding that third one.”
“I saw it earlier, so I did have a heads-up,” she admitted grudgingly.
He smiled. “Thanks for that. My ego has taken quite the beating here.”
She looked at him and then shrugged. “We all need help sometimes.”
He almost laughed at her obviously conciliatory tone and added, “Thank you. I appreciate your letting me off the hook.”
She snorted. “I’m hardly letting you off the hook, but I do recognize that we can’t always be in the best of shape, and you did take a blow from somebody I didn’t see.”
She didn’t say anything more. Yet, as they walked through the environment behind that third gate, she stopped and looked around. Same woods, same feel, and yet something was different. He watched her assess the world around her in confusion.
“It feels like something here is completely right, and something here is completely wrong, and it’s the wrong part that I don’t like.”
And, with that comment, a high-pressure noise pitched deep into Steele’s skull, making him clasp his head and cry out in pain.
Not this again . He watched helplessly as Cyan had a similar reaction.
She dropped to her knees in agony. So whoever was laughing at them had to stop them from going any farther?
He felt the misery, anger, frustration,… and fear.
Just as he was about to pass out, a hard blow came to the back of his head, and down he went.