Enigma (Rogue #2)

32

Eniola didn't realize it was possible to be more drained every day. But they'd spent over a week in the safe house and it had proved that point. The only remotely entertaining was the first night when Eniola and Jay did stuff. She thought about it way more than she should've. The way his hands touched her delicately but with such passion and wanting. He was also such a good kisser. She still had to hide the blemishes that appeared on her neck.

Now, all Eniola had to do was pray hard that the PSEUDO wouldn't find her and convinced herself Enigma didn't exist. Her stomach either turned because of the 16-year-old food they'd eaten or the imminent danger that loomed before them.

"Good morning," Lucia said less than enthusiastically, as Eniola finally appeared through the narrow hallway where everyone was eating yet again more rice. Eniola had never hated rice more in her life.

"Good morning," Eniola replied, as she took a seat next to them. One person was noticeably absent, and that was Jay. He had taken his shift in watching Keone.

Zaira was curled in the corner as she toggled with all the cellphones gathered around her. She had been working on copying the source code of Enigma so that they could at least replicate it and do something. These were the only other pieces of technology that powered Keone's suspension tank.

Keone. He was still half-dead and still in the tank. Eniola had taken all of her shifts and Keone's organs were still stained red. No one talked about what could happen if he got worse. They also hadn't talked about what to do when he came back to life.

Right at that moment, Jay came down the hallway. They greeted him before he took a seat right next to Theo.

"I remember eating this back when we were super poor," Jay mentioned. "Cream of mushroom soup and rice."

"Hopefully, this isn't for all time," Theo said. "Do you know where the computers are?"

"Not yet," Zaira said. "Kain controls it, so I can't track it anymore. But if I can copy the code, I can re-route the signal to get a location. But he's probably out of Australia and if he is, we have to leave with him."

A train of collective groans settled around the room. Eniola wasn't in the mood to go to yet a different country again, playing a game of cat and mouse with criminals.

"Do you have any updates on the outside world?" Lucia asked. "I feel like I'm going crazy not knowing about anything."

"Let me tell you," Iris said. "I still have a cyborg interface, and I can control it. So the SCOPE arena in Sydney was destroyed and wedged into the ground. The good news was that no one was inside. But it's destroyed. The authorities suspected terrorists."

"People like Kain," Eniola mumbled under her breath. The mood went dark.

Suddenly the world froze for a second, and Eniola froze into its technicolour landscape. It lingered and froze in the air and Eniola screamed internally as it lasted for what seemed like an eternity.

Some invisible force released Eniola before she fell to the ground, with ragged breaths that puffed out of her chest. Eniola caught herself with her palms before she looked upwards. Both Iris and Lucia faced each other with a look of horror, and Theo flopped back onto the couch.

"What. Was. That?" Jay hissed and said a hand to his chest. "I've never seen a glitch like that."

"But Paradox is gone?" Theo's voice came out frantically. "Is everyone okay?"

Disjointed grunts came out as responses. Lucia spoke up. "If this glitch didn't come from Paradox, that means they're already using Enigma. Shit, this is bad. This is bad."

"What do we even do?" Iris asked.

"I don't think any of us know," Eniola replied.

◣

Eniola stood in the middle of the hallway and waited outside of the room as Keone was. Nothing stopped her from going in, but Eniola liked to pretend that there was. After all, it wasn't the first time she watched over him. But everything time she'd done it, it felt like he might just die under her watch.

Eniola forced herself to take one step and another until she was inside the room again. She closed the door behind her, but not before she took a swift look outside the door. Everyone was in the main area of the house. It wasn't like there was any other place to be. This place wasn't as big as the dorm.

Eniola slowly walked over to the tank, where his body lay limp and the machine gave him a lifeline. Suspension tanks were supposed to do everything your body was supposed to do automatically, and since Keone was vegetative, somehow his organs stopped listening. It was so weird seeing him so weak when he could be so powerful.

Eniola's gaze travelled to the holo-screens beside him. It still showed the white outline of his body, only all the spots where his organs should've been were dark and splotchy. The darker the colour, the more in trouble you were. Eniola only cared about knowing this stuff, because it was part of her pre-training regimen before her parents shipped her away to medical school.

ADULT MALE. RANGE: 20-29

180cm, 72kg

HEALTH LEVEL: LOW.

CHANCE OF LIVING: 34%

Eniola didn't bother to decipher what the rest of it said. She could only be bothered because Keone might have never made it out of this suspension tank. Or somehow it stopped working, and he'd die for real. It left her stomach numb.

It was weird because all Eniola wanted was to see Paradox die. She wanted Paradox to get the justice he deserved and maybe she fantasied about that justice being a permanent end to life. But it was happening now, and it left her stomach numb. Keone could die and never come back again, and Eniola didn't know how she felt. Part of her wanted to be the one to murder Paradox, but part of her wanted to save Keone. The Keone before Paradox. The Keone she knew 3 years ago.

But she loved Jay, and a week ago was a testament to that. She even wanted to flaunt the blemishes on her neck to tell everyone that Jay had done that. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the thought. Maybe in the future, they could finish what they started.

But it wasn't her first time doing anything. Unfortunately, Keone's current state wasn't new to her. They had their share of vivid memories, and most of them didn't make Eniola feel good the way it made him feel good. They mostly made Eniola want to jump out of her skin and scream. They were too close to each other and had such intense chemistry it was so brutal when it fell apart.

He was Paradox and even before that, Keone wasn't any better. He was a sadist who manipulated people to do what he wanted. Eniola was so blindly devoted to him with her twisted perception of love.

Jay was different. Eniola didn't have to convince herself that she wanted him and that everything he did made her feel good. It just felt right with Jay.

Eniola analyzed him again. She trained her eyes on him in an unfocused gaze. Somewhere and somehow, Eniola tried to reach out to him in her mind. But he met her back with emptiness.

"Eniola?" a voice came from the door. Eniola jumped in shock before she saw Iris, who stood by the door.

"It's my turn to watch over him," Iris told her.

Eniola turned to the clock on the screens, and her eyes widened. Two hours had passed. Her gaze ran down to Keone. How had she just stayed here for two hours? She blinked repeatedly.

"Of course," Eniola replied before she turned around and swiftly walked out.