Chapter 18: The connection
There i was lying on the medical hopeless with no memorie of what caused me to even get in this mess as I layed hopeless the scent of antiseptic and stale metal filled my lungs. The last coherent memory I had was a voice, talking to me and it got burned into my mind: "Her presence near you means you are somehow linked to a soul that once used to belong to her."
I sat up quickly. A sharp cold goosebump lanced through my arm, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I still didn't understand the voice or the vision, but I knew two things: Rana hadn't told me everything, and the woman in the garden was infinitely more dangerous than my little fucked up mind can think.
The curtains around my cot were yanked open. Kenji stood there, his face tight with a smile, looking like he had slept in days.
"Reiyo! You're awake," he breathed, the relief making his voice crack.
"What happened?" I muttered, rubbing my temples. "The library... the knocking..."
"You we're screaming like crazy we didn't know what to do," Kenji said, glancing nervously toward the door. "You were talking, but not to us. You kept yelling, 'I don't get it!' Your eyes were open, but they were glazed over, like you weren't seeing anything in the room. Klaus had to knock you out just to break the connection."
Rana knew. She knew this could happen.
"Where is she?" I need to know, pushing myself off the cot.
"Rana? She's gone, man. The Captain took her somewhere right after they stabilized you. I haven't seen her or the Captain since. Silas just told me to wait here until you woke up."
I paced the small area of the bay. "The woman isn't a vessel, Kenji. She's the source. She's the reason the False Gods want to possess people. And that voice—it said I'm linked to a soul that once belonged to her."
The thought hit me with cold certainty. The suppressed past self, the chaotic Fog power, the recurring dreams—it was all linked to this mysterious woman.
Just then, the outer door of the medical bay hissed open. It wasn't Silas or the Captain. It was Jorah, the scarred veteran from the briefing, holding a sealed thermal pack and a pair of customized field vests.
"On your feet, Boy's," Jorah grunted, his mechanized arm clicking softly as he tossed one of the vests to Kenji. "The integration period is officially over. No time for sick leave."
"What are you talking about?" Kenji protested. "He just woke up from some kind of a psychic seizure!"
Jorah fixed me with a hard, unwavering gaze. "The drone retrieval mission. It's compromised. The Aetherium knew we were coming, but we have a four-hour time limit, not a minute more." He looked past the hospital cot, his eyes scanning the corridor. "The Captain decided that our immediate priority is stopping the Aetherium from decoding our frequency. We're on a tight schedule, and we leave in five minutes."
He tossed me the second vest. "Get dressed. We're moving out to the Old rogen District."