The Vanguard Vixen

Turana's Story (Two)

 Turana eventually drifted off to sleep with her thoughts, driven by the irregular pulse that somehow no longer sounded irregular at all to her. When she next woke up, Lewis was out of bed. This time, it was him who was pointing the gun at her. Her reaction was the opposite of his, and she dropped her head back down.

"Lewis, that thing is not a toy."

"Trust me, I've seen firsthand what this thing can do. But the detail on this scope is spectacular. I mean, I've been watching you through it, and by some means, it makes you even more beautiful, which I thought before impossible."

Turana had to hide under the sheets to stop Lewis from seeing just how much she was blushing. She still hadn't gotten used to completely opening herself up to someone else.

There was a knock at the door just as Lewis was enacting his imitation of Vivian with her gun much to the amusement of Turana. He only opened the door a bit, just so whoever was there couldn't see much of what was inside. It was that boy, the one that Harold had instructed to replace him so he could take them away. Lewis found that he remembered his name.

"Ali?"

"Good morning, Harold asked me to invite you to the Black Pearl for breakfast."

Lewis nodded, as an invitation for Ali to leave but he just stayed there desperately trying to look around Lewis with no luck considering Lewis' lanky build.

"Anything else?"

"Is V169 inside by any chance? Can I talk to her?"

Lewis looked back into the room, then back at the boy.

"She says she will not speak to any visitors, try your luck sometimes...never."

Lewis didn't hesitate to slam the door in Ali's face afterwards with no contempt.

"There is something about that kid I just cannot understand. It's almost as if-"

It was then that Lewis noticed Turana was staring forward with a fixed look of fear in her eyes.

Then she screamed.

**********

I was in the dark, again. Only that this time I wasn't alone, and it was more challenging than solitude because I didn't know what was in that room with me. They had blindfolded me so I couldn't see, and a mask around my nose, ears, and mouth made sure I couldn't use those either.

I felt reassured because I knew these were just memories, but the fact that I was living them, and could make influencing decisions was confusing me. Vivian said she would make me more than a clone, but into what, I couldn't understand.

A voice spoke into my head.

"Can you hear my voice Colonel Turana? A simple nod will suffice."

The mask had nodes that attached to some point behind my ear which transmitted their communication directly into the bones of my skull without me having to use my ears.

"In the room with you is an unarmed prisoner. You have sixty seconds to locate and eliminate him. Once the timer goes past a minute he will be provided with a dagger for protection, after which you will have thirty seconds and he will receive a gun, proceed."

I didn't know what had been going on here. My presence meant the original had successfully gone past this stage. I couldn't use any of my senses but I somehow could tell the general direction of my target. I stepped back, trying to get my back against the wall but after twenty-five steps with no luck, I stopped. The floor was made out of some crafted material that didn't even create the slightest vibrations when I moved.

"Only ten seconds left Colonel Turana."

When the count reached one, I snapped awake. It was dark outside and Lewis was nowhere to be seen. The door was hanging off one hinge though, and there was a note taped to it.

Sit up and look up, L.

The paper had been plucked hurriedly from a poster on the wall, and it had all been written in similar haste. There were obvious signs of a struggle from the door to bullet holes in the wall plus smashed windows which meant Lewis had put up a fight. What Turana didn't understand was how she could have failed to wake through all that, and how exactly what had felt like less than a minute to her was an entire day on the outside.

Turana looked at the note in her hand once more. For Lewis to have written it he must have known that they were coming for him. And his words were also unclear, but she anyway decided to do as he had written.

Turana stared up at the ceiling but could see nothing that was meant for her to see, so she checked the note again. She lay back on the bed and sat up, staring straight ahead and then slowly angling her eyes upwards. Her eyes caught something that was out of place, another piece of paper from the poster taped to the wall. On it was a bunch of randomly written numbers, one that would make no sense to most anyone else, but completely told Turana where she needed to go.

"Lewis Barrow you are a genius."

******
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