Aurora
We were teleported to the bottom of a river. I claw my way to the top and gasp for air. I notice Hope, Echo, and Gabriel besides me and take in my new surroundings.
"Welcome to Skyring." Hope introduces
"Creative." Echo tease
"I named it when I was 3, what do you expect?" Hope rolls her eyes
"She remembers." Gabriel smiles
We made our way to the shore where I realize I left my pack at Gabriel's camp...
"My gun. I lost it coming through." Echo sighs
"Let's hope you don't need it." I sigh
We run after Hope while trying to catch our breath
"Hope slow down! Where are you going?" Echo yells
We follow her to a small cabin with a garden outside.
"What is this place? Did you live here?" Echo asks
"Octavia said you were smart."
We then follow Hope inside where she looked under a chair for something.
"Where is it?" She stresses
Hope tears through the house to find something while I watch Gabriel pick up a weird doll
"Interesting taste in toys." He comments
"Thats not mine." She shrugs
"Is this your house or isn't it?" I question
"I was with you on Sanctum for what, a day? Given the time differential, I haven't been here for hundreds of years" she informs as she looks through some jars
"Incredible." Gabriel chuckles to himself
"Enough! We need answers, starting with where the hell is Bellamy?" Echo demands
"Once they got here, they used the bridge to take him to Bardo." Hope says
"Bardo?" I ask
"They?" Echo adds
"Yes. The next stop. They are the disciples, the guys that were chasing us in the woods. Anders said if I tagged Octavia, he would let my mother live." Hope frowns
"And Anders is?" Gabriel asks
"Head of the disciples. Now. I'm gonna go to Bardo and make sure he kept his word." Hope said, pulling out a weird key from a vase
"You traded Diyoza's life for Octavia's?" Echo furrows her brows
"No. I was not trying to kill her. I told you, it was a locater tag. I didn't have a choice. She understood." Hope sighs
"She understood?"
"Yes. My mother, my responsibility."
"You said they used the bridge. I'm assuming that's what we call the anomaly, a bridge between worlds. Is there a way to control it here, too?" Gabriel wonders
"Yes. She's standing on it." Hope looks at Echo
Echo then moves away and Hope pulls out a rug from the floor which revealed a small locked door. She used the key and opened the door then we all climbed down the ladder.
Hope lights a torch then lights up others torches in the damp cave, revealing the same stone that was at Gabriel's camp.
"I don't believe it." Gabriel chuckles
"I used to play down here as a kid. Little did I know it was a bridge to the stars." Hope explains
"So how do we get to Bardo?" I wonder
"Trust Bellamy" Hope pulls out the small vial that was put into her arm
"Of course. You have the code." Gabriel says
"A friend on the inside gave it to me. No, no, no!" Hope groans, showing us the now smudged paper
"The code, it's washed away. We're not going anywhere." Hope frowns
___
"Trust me when I tell you it is too deep. The dive will kill you." Hope warns
Hope and I were currently following Echo as she made her way back to the lake.
Echo stops in her tracks and turns to us, "How long did you expect us to stay?"
"What is it about Bellamy that has otherwise sensible women willing to die for him?" Hope grumbles causing me to chuckle lightly
Echo rolls her eyes and turn around, resuming her walk.
"Octavia tried for 6 years to get back to her brother."
Echo and I look at Hope in disbelief
"You were here for 6 years?" Echo gasp
"I was here for 20 years. She was here for 10, 6 of them spent trying to reach the pretty light at the bottom of the lake." Hope explains
"Hey. I think I can read this!" Gabriel shouts from inside the cabin
"Let's hope you can learn faster."
Hope was right. She knew way more about this planet than we do.
I follow closely behind Hope into the cabin to see Gabriel holding the paper.
"Once it dries, I'll use the charcoal to bring out the indentations in the paper. Now tell me about the code." Gabriel informs
"Told you. It operates the bridge." Hope reminds, sitting on a stool across from Gabriel
"Right. Like the, uh, one in Octavia's back." I say
"No. That was for me. From what I gather, every kind has its own unique code. They call it a biometric-"
"Signature. A conscious code. Of course." Gabriel finishes
"When you put mine in on Sanctum, you pulled me over." Hope explains
"And sent Octavia to the other side." Gabriel adds
"No. I did that. You can pull someone through by entering in their code, or you can tag them. With a tracker. It's gotta be in deep, or they could end up inside out." Hope sighs as Echo enters the cabin
"That's why you stabbed her." Echo realizes
"Yeah."
"Tell me the truth. Did you know they were taking Bellamy too?" Echo scowls
"Echo-" I warn
"No. Of course not. Octavia loves him. I made a deal to save my mother. The plan was for me to jump back in, rescue her and aunty O, and kill anyone who got in my way." Hope says
"Oh. So you're a killer, are you? You got training, I'll give you that, but you're no killer. Don't worry. I'm here now, and if they have Bellamy, then killing them all sounds about right." Echo huffs
"We'd have to get there for that, and we are not going anywhere, not with this anyway." Gabriel frowns, showing us the now black paper
"Looks like we're swimming to the Anomaly after all." Echo smirks
"I told you. It's not an Anomaly. It's a bridge, a transit system. The one in Sanctum leads here, and the one under the lake leads to Bardo." Hope groans
"The stones are connected. Each one must have a unique code." Gabriel says
"Glad that's exiting for you, but we're still stuck here." Echo points out, placing her hands on top on the fireplace
"It's warm..." Echo furrows her brows
She then takes a stick and rummages around the ashes in the fireplace to see it was recently put out
"There's someone here."
"Bellamy?" Echo calls out
"I told you. He's not here." Hope rolls her eyes
"Get out of my house!" A man yells, running out of a room while pushing Echo aside
He grabs a knife and attempts to slash her throat but Echo easily takes the knife from him and pulls his arm, pointing the knife at him. She glances at his arm in confusion and he turns towards the creepy doll,
"Hope, I'm sorry. I'll come back for you!" He promises
The man then gets out of Echo's grip and rushes out of the cabin, into the woods
"He called the doll Hope." Hope frowns
"The numbers on his arm were counting down." Echo pointed out
"It's how long he's a prisoner here. Five years. That is how long I expect us to stay."
"I have a daughter! What the hell do you mean we're staying here for five years." I panic
"It's okay, Aurora. Five years here is basically 1 second on Sanctum. She wouldn't even notice you were gone." Hope tries to reassure
"Besides, Clarke will take care of her so you don't have anything to worry about." Gabriel adds
"I guess you're right..." I frown, still worried about her
___
"You said prisoners. You don't mean this is a prison?" Gabriel asks as we make our way outside
"I did mean. Skyring is the place where they send people to atone for their sins. This garden is one of his. We have to start planting soon if we want to harvest before winter. Come on we need to find him." Hope says as she walks towards the forest
"Slow down! What are you talking about." Echo yells
"From the looks of our new friend, he's surviving on jellies alone. Eating like that, he won't make it five years, and we need him to." Hope rolls her eyes
"Why?" Gabriel asks as we being to follow Hope into the forest
"Because he's our way to Bardo. When the timer on his arm hits zero, the disciples come for him." Hope says
"Right, and you think they'll take us, too?" I ask hopefully
"Of course not. No. We kill them, take their suits, jump to Bardo." Hope explains
"There she goes taking about killing again." Echo scoffs
"What is the matter? Are you afraid? You know, Octavia might not have liked you, but she did say you were brave." Hope spat
"You have to be out of your mind if you think I'm waiting five years." Echo scowls
"Funny. She said that, too."
___
"Not bad for a prison." I mention, looking around at the beautiful nature
"Nah. Isolation is the prison, like solitary. Now depending on the time dilation relative to Bardo, you could serve a 20 year sentence here on a weekend. It's efficient." Gabriel says
"I take it you've dealt with these prisoners before." Echo assumed
"One, yes."
"Dangerous?" I wonder
"It depends. Everyone on Bardo is raised to be a disciple. Every single one of them is a warrior, not like the flower children who worshipped you." Hope looks straight at Gabriel with a sly grin
"Fortunately, they sent people here who aren't pulling their own weight, not devout enough, not strong enough. If everything I've heard about you three is true, we can take him." Hope says, crouching down to look at something
"All right. Be quiet. We're close." Hope informs
"Who taugh you how to track?" Echo asks
"The girl you stabbed and kicked over a cliff." Hope grumbles
I held in the urge to yell "OOOOH"
"It's a little more complicated than that." Echo frowns
"Sounds like a good story." Gabriel says
"You just heard it. The spy stabbed her boyfriend's sister and kicked her over a cliff. He went through here."Hope sighs, leading us closer to the man
"Don't worry, Gabriel I'll tell you more stories. Maybe I'll even teach you our language." I reassure, earning a smile from Gabriel
We found an area with dug up corpses sat up near a chessboard. It reeked of death.
"What is this?" Echo gasps
"I have no idea. Looks like he dug up the dead so he could have company." Gabriel sighs
Hope crouched down to a dead body and looks at the bracelet on its arm.
"Dev." Hope frowns
"Leave us alone! I didn't invite them here, I swear it." The man cries
"Isolation madness." Gabriel says
"Broke into our house. I tried to save Hope. I tried but I couldn't. I'm sorry..." the man cries
"Hey. I'm Hope. I grew up here." Hope crouched down near the man
"Wait." Gabriel's eyes widen, looking down at one of the rotting corpses
The man gets scared and rushes away.
"Damn it. I told you we need him." Hope scolds
"Maybe we don't." Gabriel says, kneeling down at the corpse
"C-O-L. Colonel? Military?" I furrow my brows
"Colin, last name Benson. C.B. It was on the wall near the stone.
Gabriel take out a pocket knife and cuts out a mind drive from the corpse.
"A mind drive? How?" I gasp
"Eligius III was here. We're on planet beta." Gabriel chuckles
"Skyring's better."
___
"Everyone in the Eligius mission got one. Becca Franco designed the mind- I mean memory drives to be a data retrieval system so the mothership crew could determine what happened if they returned to find a mission team dead. Like a airplane black box. Russell and I reverse engineers their tech to hold an entire mind." Gabriel explains as he takes out a tablet
"Wait. That'll play his memories?" Hope asks
"Yeah." Gabriel sighs as he unplugs a different mind drive from the tablet
"Josephine?" I raise my brow
"Yeah. I needed to make sure she was really gone." Gabriel puts her mind drive away and plugs in Colin's
The screen lights up and glitches a little bit.
"Just wait. It's repairing corrupted data."
"So what are the odds that Eligius III randomly chose two planets connected by anomaly stones?" I wonder
"Long. I'd say it suggests that the people on Bardo descend from Eligius, as well, and if I'm right, it could mean that the species that created the stones thousands, perhaps millions of years ago, were looking for a new home too. Think about it. No need for spaceships or Cryo or mind drives. You could explore and entire universe." Gabriel chuckles
"Not to point out the obvious, but if your friend here figured out how to operate the stone, he'd have used it to leave. He wouldn't be here playing chess with the dead." Hope points out
"No. Colin was a quantum physicist, a fields medal winner. If anyone could figure out how to-" Gabriel was cut off by the screen which loaded
"Dr. Benson, blink if you can hear me. Dr benson." Becca smiles
"Becca?" My eyes widen
"Gosh, I had a crush on her." Gabriel smirks
Whose gonna tell him?
"The procedure was a success. We'll remove the breathing tube in a moment. How do you feel? Good. The implant will start collecting your memory now. If you die out there, my face will be the first that the follow team sees..." Becca says
"Lightbourne, the pompous ass, thinks that Alpha is the one. He's afraid that Beta's too far from the black hole relative to the others, but if you ask me, time dilation is sexy as hell. You'll get to the future faster. Don't go anywhere." Becca smiles before walking away
"The black hole. Of course. That's why time is so accelerated here." Gabriel further explains
"Can you fast forward?" Echo sighs
"Just wait."
"You'll be here in post-op for another hour or so until you're through recovery..." Becca says
"This is gonna take a while." Echo stands up but gets stopped by Hope
"That guy out there is gonna come home. Unless we wanna wind up as guests at his picnic, I think-"
"I'll take the first watch." Echo volunteers
"Yeah."
Hope turns to me and I see a worried look on her face.
"It'll be okay, Hope. We'll be able to get the code from the memory viewer." I reassure her
I'm that moment, Hope and I locked eyes and for the first time I was able to really see her. People say the eyes are the windows to your souls and they could have never been more right.
Hope's eyes were so beautiful. I never noticed that she could look so beautiful while drenched in sweat and dirt. Her hair was messy yet,
She just looked so beautiful.
"T-thanks. I'm just worried about my mom and aunty O... which by the way, she would not shut up about you. She really sees you as a little sister, you know?" Hope says
"Yeah. We were inseparable." I chuckle, remembering our adventures on Earth
"Uh, I think it's my turn for watch." Hope says
I nod and watch her go out the door, tripping over the rug on her way out with an awkward smile.
"Glad to see you moved on." Gabriel smirks
"Oh hush. Just watch the damn screen." I roll my eyes, earning a chuckle from Gabriel
"The eligius transport crashed here. Colin's was the sole survivor. He found the stone the same way we did, by tracking the radio interference. Built this cabin above it." Gabriel shows me the screen as Echo walks in, looking over our shoulders as well
"What's all that?" Echo asks
Colins was using something to help him find certain symbols to press on the stone.
"It's brilliant. He used a ground vibration sensor and a stethoscope salvaged from the wreckage to measure tiny fluctuations in the stone caused when the correct symbol was touched in the right order." Gabriel explains
"So we have the code?" I smile
"No, not yet. There's still millions of possible combinations, but he'll get it." Gabriel says, sitting back down
Echo walks back outside while I sit across from Gabriel and close my eyes.
I tune out everything Colins is saying on the screen as I slowly began to drift off to sleep when Gabriel abruptly stood up.
"I need a pen. Um..." he frantically looks around before rushing outside.
I walk outside behind him to see what he found out from the mind drive.
"I need a pen. Ha! He did it! I need something to write with." Gabriel laughs as he rushes back inside
We all exchange hopeful looks before we run back into the cabin only to see the man holding the screen with a confuse look
"What is this?" He asks
"It's ok. No one's gonna hurt you. That's a memory viewer, ok? My friend was here. Now that man just entered the code and opened the bridge. We need to rewind it so that once we see it we can open the bridge ourselves, ok? You can go home." Gabriel explains
The man looks down at his wrist with a frown, "Too soon. I must serve my time."
"Okay. If you want to stay, you can stay. Just give us back-"
"No! I serve the master. I am his shield and his sword for all mankind!" The man cuts off Echo, then smashes the memory viewer
"No!"
Well shit.