Chapter 7
Intertwined

Rick Carter entered the cramped, stuffy hotel room shortly after dark, half expecting to find Julie Hymes waiting for him. Several days earlier, when The Voice had contacted him to let him know of Julie's disappearance, it was the first place which came to mind.

Julie had been the one to greet him on his arrival almost eight months ago. He had, she told him, been transported from the real world to a digital world.

"I was brought here by Matriarch," Julie told him, "to help her repair her defenses against hackers. But, we still need more help."

"Who's Matriarch?" Carter heard himself asking. It wasn't the dominant question on his mind, but if this Matriarch was the one responsible for his feeling of being disconnected, then he was very interested in learning everything about her.

"Matriarch," Julie said, "is, essentially, the controller of Haloverse."

He had been skeptical, naturally, and thought he must be having a dream. He was in bed at home and would wake soon. Until then he would play along.

"Right," he said. "And I'm here to help you help her. Correct?"

Julie nodded then, over the next couple of hours, laid before him all that happened in the month since she had arrived. How Matriarch pulled her in and how they've been working together to bolster Matriarch's defenses against hackers from the inside.

Shortly after her arrival, Julie had been given complete access to certain code to modify. When it became apparent that one person from the real world would not be enough, Matriarch and Julie agreed that they should bring in more real world coders, as many as necessary, to help them. He was, so far, the first. If his talent wasn't enough, more people could be brought in.

It upset him at first, the thought of being kidnapped and taken from friends and family. Julie assured him that the people brought in could be sent back home at will. She had assured him that those brought in would also be carefully selected so that the impact of being here would be very small, if any, on their personal lives.

Carter walked to the window. Down below he saw the open cafe where he and Julie had supper on the day they decided to take control of the Haloverse from Matriarch.

A storm was rolling in from the west and the smell of rain was in the air. Streams of light shot from the edges of the clouds as the sun set behind. The sound of thunder rolled through the air as Carter undid the top couple of buttons on his shirt. Hot and muggy was not his preferred weather conditions. Sweat was forming on his neck and face.

Without warning the clouds burst and the rain fell in sheets, instantly drenching everything. Carter and Julie bolted for the hotel lobby, jamming their way inside with a handful of weather escapees.

They were still laughing as they entered Julie's hotel room and looked at each other. Carter watched the water roll down Julie's bare arms and legs. Her hair plastered to her face and neck, she was the most beautiful woman he had seen in a long time.

Carter grabbed Julie by the shoulders and gently pushed her into the wall. As she began to protest he covered her mouth with his. There was an awkward moment as she froze, unsure of how to react, then her arms reached around his body and pulled him closer, returning his kiss.

"We shouldn't," Julie started to say and began to push him away when they broke the kiss.

"It's just a game," Carter said. "Let's just have some fun."

Carter stepped away from the window and left the room, briefly glancing at the section of wall where they shared that fateful kiss. He had expected her to return here, as memorable as this place was for both of them.

Downstairs, Carter approached the desk clerk and flashed a chameleon badge set to look like a local police badge. Then in one fluid motion he put the badge away and brought out a holocrystal, showing the clerk an image of Julie.

Not wanting to use his real name during not so legitimate investigations, he used the first name to come to mind.

"I'm Detective Deckard," he said, groaning inwardly at his inability to devise good fake names. "I was wondering if you've seen this woman in the past few days."

The clerk scrutinized the hologram then shook her head.

"Can't say I have. It's possible someone else has."

Carter set the holocrystal on the desk between them, deactivating it.

"We're investigating her disappearance," he said. "I'd be grateful if you'd show it around and ask about her. Maybe have everyone keep an eye out for her and let me know if she turns up here. There's a number on the crystal if you need to reach me."

"Sure, we can do that," she said, placing the crystal in one of her pockets.

"Thank you." Carter smiled at the woman and walked across the lobby.

Carter could not think of any other significant places that Julie might end up at, but he had his men on the lookout for her. If she were to be spotted, he would know.

#

Xander sat up and checked his surroundings. The last thing he remembered was seeing Julie face plant into the sidewalk not far from the restaurant. After that, nothing.

Now he was in what looked to be a prison cell. To his left and right were more cells; what looked to be at least half a dozen. They were not the kind found in a modern prison, but the kind with bars, reminiscent of old movies.

To his right was the man Xander had met briefly when arriving with Maggie, Bryant. As Xander sat up Bryant turned to face him. Xander could see cuts and bruises on his face, some covered by bandages. His clothes were torn and bloodied. It looked as if he had been in a barroom brawl.

Looking left, Xander saw Julie sitting on her bed. Little bits of cotton protruded from her nostrils. Her nose was swollen and red, and just a little crooked. He could see dark streaks on her face where she had been crying, and a large blood stain on the front of her shirt. The tears were gone, but her eyes were still swollen.

Xander stood and went to the bars separating his cage from Julie's.

"Hey, how are you?"

Julie shook her head. "I don't know."

"What do you remember?"

"We were walking," Julie said, "after eating, and then I woke up here."

"Do you know where we are?"

Julie shook her head. Xander decided it was best to let Julie rest a little bit to get over the shock. He wasn't going to get much from her in her current state of mind. He moved to the other side of the cell to talk to Bryant. Seeing Bryant reminded Xander that he had arrived with Maggie. Double checking the cells around them, he saw no sign of Maggie. Or anyone else.

"What are we doing here? And where's Maggie?"

Xander heard footsteps on the other side of a door not far away. It appeared to be an exit, one of several, to the cell block they were in.

"Speak of the devil," a woman on the other side of the door said, "and he shall appear."

The door opened and Xander was a little relieved to see that it was Maggie who had spoken the line. His relief was fleeting, however, for looking into her eyes he knew she had some role in placing the three of them in their cages. The serene, almost sad, expression he had seen shortly after landing was gone; it was now a dark, brooding, conniving glare.

"Speak of the demoness, and she is here."

The corners of Maggie's mouth pulled upward and she laughed in a manner that reminded Xander of an animal who cornered its prey and was savoring the moment before the pounce.

"You drugged us and put us in here?" Xander asked.

"Yep. Though I can't take all the credit. I had some help."

Maggie walked toward Xander's cell, running her hand across the bars of the empty cages. A masked woman entered the cell block and followed several steps behind her. The memory of what happened after Julie fell to the pavement came back to Xander.

As the accomplice reached up to remove her mask, Xander already knew who was behind it. Having set this up long before departing for the planet, Maggie sent her ahead to get ready for Xander's arrival. He was not surprised, then, to see Amanda's short blonde hair and emotionless gaze.

"Why me? And when?" Xander asked.

Maggie turned to Amanda inquisitively.

"I think that's the first time we've been asked that," Maggie said.

"It is," Amanda agreed.

Maggie walked closer to Xander's cell.

"Usually we don't get questions," Maggie said. "We just drugged them and brought them to Bryant here."

Xander looked again at Bryant locked in the cell next to him. It seemed any arrangement they had was now over. The hostile glare Bryant was giving Maggie and Amanda was confirmation enough.

"As for why you," she said. "You happened to be the right person in the right place this time around. Once we use the excuse that you wandered off during one of the regular sand storms that hits this area, nobody will spend a long time looking for you. People disappear on a regular basis in this section of the city."

"What are you going to do with us?"

"I'm glad you asked," she said, her cunning smile returning.

Using a keypad on the outside of the cell door, Maggie unlocked it and pulled it open.

"Follow me."

Amanda stayed behind Xander as he followed Maggie toward a pair of doors large enough to drive a truck through. As they drew closer he heard a sound which reminded him of a sports stadium filled with people.

Xander squinted in the sunlight streaming in as Maggie pushed the large doors open. The roar of a large audience filled his ears without the doors to block it, increasing to a deafening level as Maggie sauntered into the light. Seeing her now brought back memories of standing on the roof of the hotel just after landing. Here, as then, she was at her best.

As his eyes adjusted, Xander saw a small arena, half the size of a football field, with stands to his right. Two tiers of screaming people were illuminated by bright sunlight streaming in through a large glass dome above.

Putting her hand on his back, Amanda pushed Xander forward. The roar of the crowd intensified as he emerged into the light. Listening to them, seeing their screaming faces and waving arms, he knew he was about to take part in some spectacle designed to enthrall them. If the recent and still healing bruises and cuts on Bryant were any indication, he was about to be forced into a fight.

"The arena," Maggie said as Xander approached, yelling to be heard. Between determining whether he could take Maggie or Amanda in a fight and the raw power of the crowd he barely made out what she was saying.

"Here you will fight," she said. "The rules are simple. Kill or be killed. There is no other way to win. Or lose."

Xander felt his stomach shift and move at the word kill. He had expected a fight, but not for such high stakes. With life on the line, he knew that Maggie and Amanda were not going to fight.

He hoped his opponent was a little less of a fighter than Bryant's previous opponent. It had been years since he had been in any kind of fight, and certainly he had never killed anyone.

"You opponent," Maggie said, gesturing to the far wall behind her.

A door, identical to the one the three of them entered the arena through, opened and a young woman emerged. Xander noticed she limped slightly. She had the look of someone who had been here before.

"Your weapons," Maggie explained as Xander's opponent walked across the arena toward him, "are a baseball bat and knife. There are two of each, on the wall to your right."

At the base of the stands to his right, beneath the frenzied audience, Xander saw two baseball bats hanging ten feet apart, each paired with a long dagger.

Maggie stepped to the side as his opponent approached, allowing them to square off, like boxers before a match. There was no hatred or malice in the woman's eyes. It was just another fight, another day on the job, for her. Xander hoped he wasn't showing how afraid he really was, but doubted it was well hidden.

"The final rule," Maggie said. "Five wins and you walk away. We open the door and kick you out into the cold, hard world, where you will have to find your own way home. Now, go!"

There was a flash of motion and something hit Xander in the face, below his left eye, then he felt himself hit the ground. As he blinked to clear the floating dots in his vision he realized that, although her legs may be slow, his opponent's hands weren't.

Xander blinked again and looked around to make sure he wasn't about to get jumped. To one side he saw the still unimpressed Amanda, and Maggie enjoying the spectacle. To the other side he saw the woman limping her way toward the weapons as fast as he feet would carry her.

Xander shook his head and stood up. His equilibrium was still off, but he knew he could get to one set of weapons at the same time as this woman whose only goal was to kill him and win her freedom.

He had been hoping it wouldn't come to killing. Although not the greatest fighter, he had hoped he would be able to fight any opponent into some kind of stand-off, or at the most make them submit.

After seeing the blood drying on Bryant, however, and this woman limping toward one set of weapons, he knew that was no longer a possibility. Even if he could disarm her and overpower her, he was certain that one of them was going to die; even if a reason had to be invented. Maggie and Amanda wanted to see someone die. The screaming red faces of the audience wanted to see someone die.

Xander began moving as fast as his shaky legs would carry him. Certain as he was that one of them was going to die, he wanted to make sure it wasn't him.

#

Ariana checked her watch for the second time in ten minutes. Since his arrival here, she and Xander had been in almost constant contact. She was glad to have someone who could talk about things she was familiar with, without thinking of those things as ancient history.

Xander seemed glad to have someone who didn't regard him with constant suspicion and disdain; even if, from his point of view, she was just a creation of this universe.

In all the time she had been trapped here, Ariana never told anyone that she had come from the real world. She had repressed the feeling of being disconnected and moved on, as she usually did in her other life.

Xander, with a wife and daughter, as she discovered, had every reason to want to get back home. Ariana made sure it was as strong the day he left to reactivate the communications facility as the day he arrived.

What Talon was doing, Ariana told him, was to make sure that people who were disconnected would not be brought in, but sent straight back home. The truth was that was part of what they were doing. From Talon's point of view, they were correcting a major influx of data traffic from seemingly nowhere through the UNSC communications network, until the source could be located and stopped. Other options, including attempts to block the traffic and filter it out, had failed.

So Talon had been contracted to help correct the problems. Their plan was to send teams of engineers to reactivate disused communications facilities temporarily to alleviate the strain all the extra data was putting on current resources.

Xander had been among those engineers, personally chose by her, to keep him from going stir crazy from coding all day. He had stayed in regular contact aboard the Packers, the only break being when he was at the facility and unable to contact her.

When Xander contacted her to inform her that he was going down to the planet, Menkar 6, she was glad that he was getting out and doing something to take his mind off going home.

Now the Packers was preparing to leave Menkar 6 and return its precious cargo of engineers to Talon. Ariana was expecting Xander to contact her and let her know he had safely returned to the Packers and was ready to come back, as he did after leaving Icarus Chi Beta. She had heard nothing from him, however, and was beginning to worry.

Ariana pressed the button on the front of the holocomm on her writing desk. It was time to start making calls.

#

Xander collapsed on top of the woman, his hands still tight around her neck. The look on her face, a mixture of relief and surprise, revealed to him the last things to go through her mind before he had crushed her wind pipe.

His side began to ache where the woman had driven it to the hilt as they went to the ground seconds before. Looking at it, Xander saw her hand still gripping the handle.

As he pried his aching fingers from her throat he began to cry, more from remorse than the dagger or the other injuries sustained in the short and brutal fight that had ended in his first kill.

Xander heard footsteps and looked up to see two medics rushing toward them. Seeing the bruises and indentations his fingers had left, it took them no time to determine that she was dead.

One of the medics unfolded the woman's finger's from the knife and together they began to help him up. He wanted to tell them to leave him there to die as well. During the fight he had felt something awaken inside him; something from deep down that rose to the surface as the fight turned against him. It had saved his life, but at the expense of another.

Never before had Xander been in a position like this. His complete lack of control in the final moments of the fight had shocked him as much as what he had done. Now he was unsure of himself, afraid he might become the monster again at any moment.

Limping and bleeding, Xander allowed the medics to take him out of the arena to a small medical bay, where they began to cut off his clothes.

As one medic crossed the room to dispose of his clothes and began to prepare a vial for what appeared to be a subcutaneous injector, the other leaned in to check the gash on the side of his head.

"I know who you are," the medic quietly said.

The words registered slowly in Xander's brain, his thoughts were still on the fight and the change that came over him.

"What?"

"I said I know who you are. You're Joey Tristan. We worked together a few years ago, though I doubt you'd remember."

Xander shook his head. "Afraid I don't."

Xander had come to accept that the body he currently inhabited was not his and belonged to someone that had lived a life in this universe. He also knew that everyone he had ever met didn't know about the personality switch. Without the time to prove he was another person, highly unlikely to begin with if his first day was any indication, he decided to play along.

The medic across the room was almost finished preparing a second vial. With no time to chat, Xander felt certain the medic examining him would not question him to find out the entire history of how he had gotten here.

"Can you do me a favor?" Xander asked. Without giving Joey's old acquaintance time to say no, he continued. "I just want you to pass a message to someone. Think you can do that?"

Still pretending to examine Xander, the medic nodded.

"I need you to contact a woman named Ariana Murphy. Just tell her where I am and what the situation is."

As the second medic finished preparing the second vial and returned the medicines to the cabinet, Xander gave his new friend Ariana's holocomm number. He wasn't sure they weren't working for Maggie and Amanda, but he had to try to get a message out.