Ex Officio (#3 EX TRILOGY)

Chapter 8

The water that had enveloped Akoma rushed into her nostrils and mouth and flooded her air passage. She could literally feel water inside her head. She felt drawn through what looked like several feet of water and tried catching a glimpse of where she had been taken from, and to her utmost terror, she realized the hole was not beneath her but above her, meaning she was rather being pulled down the bottom of the water instead of towards the surface. Did it mean Poku's base was in a submarine?

But a double take informed her that the hole was just there - without any supports. It was just floating there like a portal into another room she could not see.

'Oh no,' she thought and struggled to break free from the sheath of water that was beginning to crush her. She coughed and spurted bubbles into her face when she began to feel a sudden nudge in her ribs. She could feel every fibre of her being crying and fighting for survival as the rogue water sheath swelled and contracted rapidly, the result feeling like Akoma was stuck between two walls that were trying to turn her into sandwich. One more compression followed, and this time it felt more painful and uncomfortable than the first ones. Was she going to get killed? The last time she was close to drowning, Ender had asked her to do that under mind control (which turned out to be Akoma's own imagination because the mind control had been broken when Ender got intimate with her one time), and it was a totally terrifying experience. This one felt worse than the first because everything was abnormal. Her mind was so choked with fear and confusion that it was very difficult for her to reason and think of a way out of this scenario.

This scenario...

Scenario?

Akoma's eyes snapped open at the thought of that. She did not remember getting logged on to Scenario. The last thing she remembered was being in her room after Dufie's visit. She did not remember sleeping or being drugged. How could she have ended in this weird situation that felt both real and unreal at the same time?

'I have to break out of this', she thought to herself and attempted to pull her arms apart, hoping that the water sheath would loosen and break apart if she was indeed in a virtual world. Before she could do anything further, the sheath swelled into the size of a big sphere, and in a quick surge, it contracted and crushed her so hard that she could feel some bones breaking. Akoma let out a scream which rather escaped as a stream of bubbles and blood. Her head was bashing and her entire body was on fire. The water sheath finally burst apart and tossed her out to float limply in the water. She could not breathe, and it was not because she had held her breath; it felt like her lungs had been crushed. As she slowly rolled over through the water, she imagined her location as under the sea and thought of the possibility of not being alone, and just then she glimpsed something approaching her. She looked up and saw in a blur a mass swimming in her direction from a distance. She shut her eyes and opened them again, and she was shocked to see the mass split into two equal parts, one on the left and the other on the right, and both were approaching at top speed.

'Could they be....?'

She shook her head and attempted to rub her eyes, but she regretted moving her arms due to excruciating pain in the broken bones and stopped. She shut her eyes for a moment and opened them again, and all she could do was let out a noiseless cry that escaped in a stream of bubbles again.

The two identical masses turned out to be sharks.

**************

The Vice President woke up from his sleep and groped for Ender by his side, but when he could not touch her, he turned to find her gone. He wrapped himself with the bed covers and staggered groggily to the bathroom. When he found out she was not there, he urinated and returned to the bedroom. The only place he could think of as a possible place Ender must have gone was the balcony. He walked slowly towards the door and reached for the knob, but instead it turned on its own and opened to reveal Ender staring cluelessly at him.