Alienated

Holograms

Jackson

It was going to take a couple more hours for Oliver to finish his tech so I went to see if I could help either of the girls. Zara was still running simulations on the holographic computer and getting progressively more frustrated.

"I'm trying to see what the best plan is going to be." She told me. "If we do break into that facility, it won't just be so that we can get your friend. We'll need to get as much information as we can to give us the upper hand. Missions like these are extremely delicate. Anything can go wrong. That's what the simulations are for. I put in a different entry and exit points as well as a time frame, probable locale of workers, and possible rooms that we could search into the computer and it shows me what might happen. So far, most of our chances of survival have been extremely low even with our wild card. You. I'm just missing something." 

The woman seemed on the verge of being defeated. I didn't know what to say or how to react. The woman I fight off a Mute without so much as a scratch is so close to breaking. I wanted to help but I didn't know how. At the orphanage, we didn't have much of the technology around today. Instead, our form of entertainment was to read books from the past and present or hang out with what few friends we had. The rest of the time we just ate, slept and went to classes. I didn't have time to think about the outside world but looking back, there are some things out here that I could never imagine. 

Feeling just as defeated as Zara, I decided to see what Carter was doing. I had seen her walk through one of the doors to my left whilst I was with Oliver so I followed. As I walked through the door, I saw that the room looked very much like the original room but instead of computers, it was filled with different gym equipment. I also noticed that the room was slightly bigger and had two doors, one directly opposite me and on the wall to my left. I began to wonder how deep this actually goes and how long it took to build.

A movement towards the right of me is what brought my attention to the person I was here to see. Carter had just finished punching and kicking a punching bag with her back to me as she moved towards the centre of the room. There was a square on the floor marked out with yellow paint with nothing in it. Directly on the outskirts of that boundary, however, there was a desktop computer on top of a small grey pedestal. The woman typed something into the computer and stepped into the square as the lights dimmed. I saw her bend down and grab a small dagger that had been hidden in her boot. As she stood back up, small objects began to appear in the square. Holograms of people began to flicker to life and started to run towards her. Carter sprang into life, fighting off each one of the images who dared try and attack her. It was such a spectacle to watch. The woman was doing flips and dodging each one of the blows and seemed like an expert at hand to hand combat. Each time the dagger would cut somebody, a small part of their body would turn yellow and break away in small cubes that disappeared after bouncing on the floor, and each time a killing stroke was made, the hologram would fall to the floor and shatter upon impact into hundreds of tiny yellow cubes. At one point she caught me watching and smirked at me before punching one of the images trying to sneak up behind her. I couldn't believe the skill Carter possessed. I couldn't understand how she knew that imaginary man was there. As she continued fighting, I slowly became more and more intimidated.

After about ten minutes of watching Carter fight holograms, the lights began to brighten and the woman came over to me panting. I must've looked like a cartoon whose jaw was on the ground in awe because she began chuckling and gently pushed my jaw back into place. I noticed how soft her eyes looked now. Before they had been cold and menacing but now, they were warm and friendly. It was curious to see how quickly it took for her to warm up to me. 

"Like what you saw?" she smirked. I found it difficult to express my admiration.

"I-well, yeah! That was amazing. How did you learn all of that?"

"Most of it was self-taught like the knife training and some of the hand to hand combat. I was also in the military for a few years. My father was in it before he retired so I wanted to make him proud. And I saw military but the apparent truth of it is that it was more like a 'Martial Law' kind of thing. I was trained to put fear into people to make them submit. It disgusted me." Carter explained. The smirk disappeared as she began talking about the military and was replaced by a scowl. That was soon replaced by a sly and curious grin. "Did you want something of me?"

It took me a second to remember why I had entered this room when I answered, "Oh, I just wanted to see if you needed any help with anything. I can't really do anything that Zara and Oliver are doing so I came to you."

"Actually, I was thinking that I could help train you. You know, in hand to hand combat. Your powers are only going to get so far." She said thoughtfully. I thought on the concept for a moment. She was right. My abilities would only get me so far and to control them is another point entirely. It couldn't hurt to try.

"Let's do it." 

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P.S. Don't forget to vote/comment what you like about the story or what you don't like so that I can evaluate and change some things in the next chapters. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. Thanks, guys!