Chapter Seven
2005
Sweat beaded rapidly across the weathered brow of Arvin Sloane, the heat and humidity pressing down on him like a wet cloth as he jumped out of the chopper onto the brush cleared dirt of Africa. Taking a moment to wipe his face with a handkerchief, his eyes scanned the metal fortress caging Rambaldi's greatest project. The two guards outside the keypad locked door leaned lazily on their AK-47's either not noticing or not caring that a helicopter just landed.
Once he collected himself on the solid ground, Sloane approached the two guards holding himself straight, giving off an aura of confidence. Their eyes widened with recognition and they both scrambled to appear alert.
He merely nodded at the men, now standing with rigid posture, making a mental note to have them replaced later. Since he was feeling rather vindictive, he planned to make them suffer a bit as well. He was halfway through typing the code when he paused, lowering his eyes with thought. Turning slowly, he faced the backs of the nervously sweating men. "Has there been a disturbance since I was here last?" he asked slowly, without a trace of suspicion in his tone.
"No, sir," the man to his left barked, military training showing through the laziness earlier. Sloane's eyes snapped to the other guard, whose eyes were cast down at the hard African soil.
Once satisfied that they were speaking the truth, he turned back to the keypad. Inside the air was refreshingly crisp, as he had ordered it to be, and he let the waves of coolness relieve his skin before moving towards the cause of his unease.
Everything appeared normal, untouched, until his eyes scanned the encrypted indentations on the front panel. A red stain shimmered dully from the surface, and his eyes widened in rage. Someone was using Ill Dire, someone was inside of it at that very moment! He scratched at the markings, trying to draw the stain away from the surface. His fingernails came away bloody and stinging, but there was no warm glow, no sensation throughout his entire body.
Ill Dire did not allow two at once. Arvin would have to wait his turn.
***
2003
Moonlight cut a narrow band through the parting in the drawn curtains. The single beam lit the room with an ethereal glow, shading the sleeping faces with a blue gray tint, which, if one were to awake and glance about, would cause them to believe they were in truth still slumbering.
The air was heavy and moist with sea mist and emotion as it tapped lightly against the shut glass window and slithered uninvited through the cracks. Creeping slowly towards the bed, it settled above the couple asleep, hands intertwined on the pillow between them. It tickled Sydney's cheek as she slept. But to Sydney, she was not sleeping.
*
She was in a hallway, walking heavily, each step with an individual purpose. She saw him. He turned and his eyes met hers as he approached.
"I came by to see how you were."
"Are you kidding me?" She asked. Surely he must have been joking.
"No, I...just wanted to make sure that you..."
"You didn't come here to see how I am...you came here to see how you are, because you know in your heart what you did...you want to make sure you're okay."
"I buried you. Consider that for what that's..."
"Don't use rational thought as a defense with me, not after all you and I have seen. Vaughn, you and I live and breathe madness every day on the job...there is no...rational thought!" Her eyes were flashing daggers and swords, glowing hot coals in a blue white fire.
"I can't even pretend to have a conversation about anything else with you. What it comes down to is faith! What I was hoping you would say is, 'Sydney I gave up; I gave up on us. I lost faith.' But what you came here for...was closure...and there is not a chance you are getting that from me!" Her voice began to tremble. But she wouldn't cry. Not now.
"I'm not gonna say I understand...I'm not gonna sympathize with you and tell you how hard it must be for you... But.... You wanna know how I am!? I am horrible! Vaughn, I am ripped apart! And not because I lost you... but because...if it had been me... I would have waited... I would have found the truth...I wouldn't have given up on you!"
It wasn't supposed to be like this....
"And know I realize... what an absolute waste that would have been!"
And he stood... and stared. And her shining eyes dimmed to dying embers, but the fire remained. And she walked away, and he stared. He stared as the glassy film he'd been fighting himself finally spread over his eyes and blurred the golden shine on his finger.
Emotions barreled through her, a head on collision into her already battered heart. Despair, anger, confusion, disappointment... in him.
*
Sydney's eyes snapped open. Her eyes had barely adjusted to the darkness when she realized that her body was shaking violently, rattling so hard that it pained her.
A wave of nausea tore through her quivering body and she made the ten step trip to the bathroom just in time to beat the convulsion, bent over the toilet a second before the gagging overtook her, releasing the room service dinner she and Vaughn had eaten merely hours before.
It came again and again until finally the nausea faded, but her body continued its trembling her head spinning. Every emotion she'd felt in her... dream... remained in her, eating away at her heart and thoroughly confusing every rational memory stored in her mind.
A silent sob racked its way up her throat and out of her mouth as she desperately tried to make sense of it all, the tears raining down through her hurricane of feelings.
And suddenly, there he was in the doorway of the bathroom, concern branded in his heavy lidded eyes. "Syd... oh my God, Syd..."
The sight of him, though relieving in most ways, shot the spasm of emotions through tired body again. His eyes, now so worried and warm, reflected in her mind as the frosty green in her dream, trying so hard to block themselves off from showing the hurt of her razor blade words.
His hands, now gently brushing the hair off her neck as she vomited into the porcelain bowl again, now brought forth a gold flash in her mind. A gold circular band, welded with pain and despair.
As she pulled back and wiped her mouth lightly with a sheet of toilet paper, Vaughn hugged still shaking frame carefully to him. "Syd, what happened? What's wrong?"
She couldn't answer, only locked her arms more tightly around him as his hands moved in a soothing adagio pattern through her hair and back.
Five more minutes passed, Sydney's quiet crying dissolving the silence. Finally, she pulled back and gulped in a shaking breath as her tears slowed to a drizzle and halted. Relief cleansed her emotionally-sooted soul at the feeling of Vaughn's lips on her forehead. "You all right?"
She smiled weakly. "I just... I want to brush my teeth. Go back to bed, I'll be right there."
He nodded in understanding and took her hand, helping her up. He squeezed it once more, and left the room slowly, watching her over his shoulder to make sure she wouldn't be sick again. She brushed her teeth until the bristles were stained pink, wanting to rid herself of any bit of evidence that the dream had ever happened.
She splashed cool water on her face, lightening the rose around her tear stained eyes, and took a long drink to soothe the burning in her throat.
Taking in several more breaths, she returned to the bedroom and found him waiting for her, forehead wrinkles showing prominently, even in the half dark. She took her place beside him and his arms closed automatically around her, his hands resuming their soothing patterns once more.
She curled closer to him and heard his whispered plea. "Syd, please tell me what happened."
"It was... it was just a dream. A nightmare."
"A nightmare has never had that affect on you," he countered.
He was right. Her nightmares, though often vivid and terrifying, had never impacted her to the point of this one. What scared her the most was that she didn't know where it had come from, what could have possibly brought it about. "It felt so real," she whispered, burying her tear crusted face into his skin.
"What was it about?"
There was a pause, a silence that almost seemed to answer for her. "I was... yelling at you. Not just yelling empty words in the heat of the moment though... I was so angry. I have never felt that enraged or hurt in my entire life."
"Why?" he whispered as his hand began to stroke lightly down her arm, encouraging her to go on.
"You... you got married. To someone else."
His hand's motion paused for a moment, as though in shock, then began on its path again, slightly more stiff. "Why would I ever do that?"
"You thought I was dead. But I wasn't. I came back. And I was so angry at you for losing faith... for giving up on us."
"Sydney..."
"It felt so real, Vaughn. I don't even know how I can tell you everything I just told you. All that didn't happen in my dream. I just know... somehow I just know that you'd thought I was dead... I'd been missing. I've never had a dream like that before. It felt so real."
"But it wasn't, Syd. I could never do that. I could never lose faith in us, never just move on like that. Ever." He gripped her hand tightly in reassurance.
"Ok..."
"Look at me, Sydney." She turned and her eyes caught the glitter of his in the darkness. "It would never happen. I promise."
She nodded and smiled a little, comforted. "I believe you."
Hands still linked together, they shut their eyes and drifted to sleep again, Sydney now allowing peace to replace her troubled mind. In the quiet warmth of night, neither of them dared to think that her worries were not only justified, but were materializing into truth in the ever approaching distance....
2005
Sweat beaded rapidly across the weathered brow of Arvin Sloane, the heat and humidity pressing down on him like a wet cloth as he jumped out of the chopper onto the brush cleared dirt of Africa. Taking a moment to wipe his face with a handkerchief, his eyes scanned the metal fortress caging Rambaldi's greatest project. The two guards outside the keypad locked door leaned lazily on their AK-47's either not noticing or not caring that a helicopter just landed.
Once he collected himself on the solid ground, Sloane approached the two guards holding himself straight, giving off an aura of confidence. Their eyes widened with recognition and they both scrambled to appear alert.
He merely nodded at the men, now standing with rigid posture, making a mental note to have them replaced later. Since he was feeling rather vindictive, he planned to make them suffer a bit as well. He was halfway through typing the code when he paused, lowering his eyes with thought. Turning slowly, he faced the backs of the nervously sweating men. "Has there been a disturbance since I was here last?" he asked slowly, without a trace of suspicion in his tone.
"No, sir," the man to his left barked, military training showing through the laziness earlier. Sloane's eyes snapped to the other guard, whose eyes were cast down at the hard African soil.
Once satisfied that they were speaking the truth, he turned back to the keypad. Inside the air was refreshingly crisp, as he had ordered it to be, and he let the waves of coolness relieve his skin before moving towards the cause of his unease.
Everything appeared normal, untouched, until his eyes scanned the encrypted indentations on the front panel. A red stain shimmered dully from the surface, and his eyes widened in rage. Someone was using Ill Dire, someone was inside of it at that very moment! He scratched at the markings, trying to draw the stain away from the surface. His fingernails came away bloody and stinging, but there was no warm glow, no sensation throughout his entire body.
Ill Dire did not allow two at once. Arvin would have to wait his turn.
***
2003
Moonlight cut a narrow band through the parting in the drawn curtains. The single beam lit the room with an ethereal glow, shading the sleeping faces with a blue gray tint, which, if one were to awake and glance about, would cause them to believe they were in truth still slumbering.
The air was heavy and moist with sea mist and emotion as it tapped lightly against the shut glass window and slithered uninvited through the cracks. Creeping slowly towards the bed, it settled above the couple asleep, hands intertwined on the pillow between them. It tickled Sydney's cheek as she slept. But to Sydney, she was not sleeping.
*
She was in a hallway, walking heavily, each step with an individual purpose. She saw him. He turned and his eyes met hers as he approached.
"I came by to see how you were."
"Are you kidding me?" She asked. Surely he must have been joking.
"No, I...just wanted to make sure that you..."
"You didn't come here to see how I am...you came here to see how you are, because you know in your heart what you did...you want to make sure you're okay."
"I buried you. Consider that for what that's..."
"Don't use rational thought as a defense with me, not after all you and I have seen. Vaughn, you and I live and breathe madness every day on the job...there is no...rational thought!" Her eyes were flashing daggers and swords, glowing hot coals in a blue white fire.
"I can't even pretend to have a conversation about anything else with you. What it comes down to is faith! What I was hoping you would say is, 'Sydney I gave up; I gave up on us. I lost faith.' But what you came here for...was closure...and there is not a chance you are getting that from me!" Her voice began to tremble. But she wouldn't cry. Not now.
"I'm not gonna say I understand...I'm not gonna sympathize with you and tell you how hard it must be for you... But.... You wanna know how I am!? I am horrible! Vaughn, I am ripped apart! And not because I lost you... but because...if it had been me... I would have waited... I would have found the truth...I wouldn't have given up on you!"
It wasn't supposed to be like this....
"And know I realize... what an absolute waste that would have been!"
And he stood... and stared. And her shining eyes dimmed to dying embers, but the fire remained. And she walked away, and he stared. He stared as the glassy film he'd been fighting himself finally spread over his eyes and blurred the golden shine on his finger.
Emotions barreled through her, a head on collision into her already battered heart. Despair, anger, confusion, disappointment... in him.
*
Sydney's eyes snapped open. Her eyes had barely adjusted to the darkness when she realized that her body was shaking violently, rattling so hard that it pained her.
A wave of nausea tore through her quivering body and she made the ten step trip to the bathroom just in time to beat the convulsion, bent over the toilet a second before the gagging overtook her, releasing the room service dinner she and Vaughn had eaten merely hours before.
It came again and again until finally the nausea faded, but her body continued its trembling her head spinning. Every emotion she'd felt in her... dream... remained in her, eating away at her heart and thoroughly confusing every rational memory stored in her mind.
A silent sob racked its way up her throat and out of her mouth as she desperately tried to make sense of it all, the tears raining down through her hurricane of feelings.
And suddenly, there he was in the doorway of the bathroom, concern branded in his heavy lidded eyes. "Syd... oh my God, Syd..."
The sight of him, though relieving in most ways, shot the spasm of emotions through tired body again. His eyes, now so worried and warm, reflected in her mind as the frosty green in her dream, trying so hard to block themselves off from showing the hurt of her razor blade words.
His hands, now gently brushing the hair off her neck as she vomited into the porcelain bowl again, now brought forth a gold flash in her mind. A gold circular band, welded with pain and despair.
As she pulled back and wiped her mouth lightly with a sheet of toilet paper, Vaughn hugged still shaking frame carefully to him. "Syd, what happened? What's wrong?"
She couldn't answer, only locked her arms more tightly around him as his hands moved in a soothing adagio pattern through her hair and back.
Five more minutes passed, Sydney's quiet crying dissolving the silence. Finally, she pulled back and gulped in a shaking breath as her tears slowed to a drizzle and halted. Relief cleansed her emotionally-sooted soul at the feeling of Vaughn's lips on her forehead. "You all right?"
She smiled weakly. "I just... I want to brush my teeth. Go back to bed, I'll be right there."
He nodded in understanding and took her hand, helping her up. He squeezed it once more, and left the room slowly, watching her over his shoulder to make sure she wouldn't be sick again. She brushed her teeth until the bristles were stained pink, wanting to rid herself of any bit of evidence that the dream had ever happened.
She splashed cool water on her face, lightening the rose around her tear stained eyes, and took a long drink to soothe the burning in her throat.
Taking in several more breaths, she returned to the bedroom and found him waiting for her, forehead wrinkles showing prominently, even in the half dark. She took her place beside him and his arms closed automatically around her, his hands resuming their soothing patterns once more.
She curled closer to him and heard his whispered plea. "Syd, please tell me what happened."
"It was... it was just a dream. A nightmare."
"A nightmare has never had that affect on you," he countered.
He was right. Her nightmares, though often vivid and terrifying, had never impacted her to the point of this one. What scared her the most was that she didn't know where it had come from, what could have possibly brought it about. "It felt so real," she whispered, burying her tear crusted face into his skin.
"What was it about?"
There was a pause, a silence that almost seemed to answer for her. "I was... yelling at you. Not just yelling empty words in the heat of the moment though... I was so angry. I have never felt that enraged or hurt in my entire life."
"Why?" he whispered as his hand began to stroke lightly down her arm, encouraging her to go on.
"You... you got married. To someone else."
His hand's motion paused for a moment, as though in shock, then began on its path again, slightly more stiff. "Why would I ever do that?"
"You thought I was dead. But I wasn't. I came back. And I was so angry at you for losing faith... for giving up on us."
"Sydney..."
"It felt so real, Vaughn. I don't even know how I can tell you everything I just told you. All that didn't happen in my dream. I just know... somehow I just know that you'd thought I was dead... I'd been missing. I've never had a dream like that before. It felt so real."
"But it wasn't, Syd. I could never do that. I could never lose faith in us, never just move on like that. Ever." He gripped her hand tightly in reassurance.
"Ok..."
"Look at me, Sydney." She turned and her eyes caught the glitter of his in the darkness. "It would never happen. I promise."
She nodded and smiled a little, comforted. "I believe you."
Hands still linked together, they shut their eyes and drifted to sleep again, Sydney now allowing peace to replace her troubled mind. In the quiet warmth of night, neither of them dared to think that her worries were not only justified, but were materializing into truth in the ever approaching distance....