Ever Episode Four: Ever, #4

By Odette C. Bell

The future will wait no longer.

It's time for Genevieve to find out what she is. Whether she wants to or not, the legacy of the Atlanteans will rise up to meet – and strangle – her. But at least she's not alone. Scott and his crew band around her. Together, they take on what history has forgotten – the rot at the heart of their greatest civilization.

….

Ever follows a cryogenic woman out of her time and a transport captain fighting to save the galaxy from her power. If you love your space operas with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab Ever Episode Four today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Mar 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393612629

Book preview

1

Genevieve

That black energy rushed up from the floor and plunged down from the ceiling. There was nothing I could do to stop it from entering my body. It pushed in past every defense until my mouth opened wide. My neck elongated, my back arching. As pain ripped through me, it felt like I would be twisted apart – as if the hands of God had clutched my back and hips and wanted to squeeze to find out what was inside.

I was no longer aware of that alien. Maybe he was still in the room, off to the side of this strange platform space, staring at me, watching with glee as my ego was torn apart.

He might have put this as my mere personality being removed, but it was more than that. Blood started to drip down from my fingernails. I could feel it trailing down my cheeks from my eyes. Not only was my body undergoing enormous pain – it was being damaged, too. I didn’t know how much more I could put up with. Yet somehow, in the back of my head, one thing remained. One word I’d stupidly forgotten earlier. Scott.

Though it was likely a waste of energy, all I wanted to do was part my lips and whisper his name. It was foolish. He couldn’t be in the room. If he was, he would drop everything to help me. So he was….

I almost lost hold of that question. More black energy kept rushing into me. I had no clue where it was coming from. At first it looked as if it was actually coming from the dark images below me. I didn’t know how they were replicating the vision I’d gotten of the future, but they were – right down to that massive wave of power blasting out of the infinity drive. If I had been rational, I would’ve realized that could be no accident. For me to see a vision that these aliens had access to made it far more likely that what I had seen in the first place was not a vision of the future at all, but something manufactured to manipulate me.

My mind kept slipping. It was like I was trying to run on ice. But every time I thought I’d fall, his name rose. I didn’t even have a face to attach to it anymore. My mind was too porous to hold on to memories. But I finally did it – with all my energy, I managed to move my lips. That was it, however. I couldn’t whisper his name. It was locked in my throat.

Finally I thought I heard that alien. Submit to the process, he said in that same sonorous voice. But while it had a hypnotic quality to it, he couldn’t completely hide his anger. There was only a spark of it. He wasn’t screaming at me or anything. But it was there. It twisted through his words just as darkly as the energy that continued to rise from the floor and descend from the ceiling.

What… it was hard to think this, but what if this was time-sensitive in some way? What if I honestly had to submit for this process to work? More blood kept dripping down from my nails. And I had no idea how much covered my face. I felt as if I was on the edge of death, but for him to be frustrated, maybe there was a chance?

I had to believe that. If I didn’t – if I gave up and submitted – the energy would swallow me whole.

First, I tried to concentrate on the fact I had to have a chance, and I used what was left of my mind – the precious few scraps of darting forces of psyche – to try to figure out how I could get out of here. But it was too hard to concentrate. I had to fall back to the only thing I could hold on to. And that was Scott’s name. I can’t exactly describe how I held onto it. It wasn’t as if it was tangible – as if his name had come to life and I could literally grasp it with my weak hands. But there was something there.

I heard that alien give another frustrated hiss. This one arced up high. Maybe he was close, or perhaps from wherever he was, he was starting to get angry enough that his voice was echoing across this cavernous room. Submit to the process, he snarled now. Anyone would be able to hear the anger in his voice. It sounded as if it was about to crack through his throat. Your ego must be destroyed. Allow it to be dissolved. Once it is, you will feel no pain.

I hadn’t been able to articulate Scott’s name out loud before. I had no energy – none at all. It was lucky I was being suspended in the air. Otherwise I would’ve flopped violently down to my face. I couldn’t protect or defend myself. But in that moment, I still found the energy to open my lips. Scott, I whispered.

Hearing his name brought it all back. I finally saw his face. It happened in a rush of exhilaration, of energy that pounded through my heart, up through my throat, and into my mouth. It enabled me to say it once more, and this time, there was a joyous note to my voice. Scott.

Is dead, he said. There was no uncertainty in his tone. He wasn’t making this up.

I….

I threatened to give up. The energy surrounding me became twice as black. It reacted to my fear, sensing an opening.

But just before it could capitalize and gush into me as if it were trying to drown me, I stopped.

I held onto my fear, but I didn’t let it expose me to the darkness. I used it instead.

I’d been complaining that I had no idea how to use technology – that the memories of the future that I had learned over the past 500 years were blocked off from me. Now I accessed them. It wasn’t in spite of my fear, but because of it – because of the promise that the only person who could make this future make any sense was now dead.

My head jerked back again, but this time, it was me doing it.

This rush of power erupted from my center. I had no idea where it came from. It wasn’t like I was storing a battery down there. But it exploded out of me, cascading through the room. I hadn’t noticed, but I was now entirely surrounded by black power. It was so thick, it was as if I was at the heart of some storm ridden planet. A place that had never seen light and was never meant to. But as that energy blasted out of me, rays of it shone through the black clouds.

That alien hissed. It was such a powerful, shaking move, it was as if someone had just stabbed him in the throat.

I thought I could escape the cloud, but I couldn’t. My mind, however, could. My capacity to connect to technology and control it still functioned.

I wasn’t touching anything. I had no handy contact with a computer or a power conduit, or anything else that would be able to port my consciousness. It didn’t matter. I used those dark clouds instead. I connected to them, however briefly, forcing them to carry my message. They were connected to the holo panels beneath me.

No, stop, that alien screamed, his voice pitching through the room.

I thought I heard air rushing toward me. Maybe the strange platform he was on was now shooting my way. Perhaps it would flatten me against the wall. Maybe he’d wrap his hands around my throat and tell me once more that all I needed to do was let go.

Screw that.

Scott, I whispered again. I now had the capacity to speak freely, and the only thing I said was that. Every other word in the Standard Galactic Tongue was useless. None of it conveyed what I needed to do right now.

My eyes opened wide. If I’d had the perspective to see them from up above, I would’ve noted that light ran through them – reflected lines of information, too.

For I had just connected to the station’s computer.

Floods of information sprang into me. I tried to hold them, tried to sift through them, but it was like picking up every single grain of sand in the Sahara. I was aware they were there, but I could not grasp them. I didn’t need them all, anyway. I searched and searched and searched.

All I needed was footage. In a snap, I found it. It was just as that alien reached me.

I don’t know what he did. While my eyes were open, they were focused on what I saw internally. But the energy around me – those black clouds – became twice as thick. It was rushing around me with the force to strangle a thousand people – let alone one.

It centered on my chest. It picked me up like a boa constrictor. It was trying to force its way in again. If I had been paying attention to it and not the task of searching for Scott, I would’ve lost it. My body really was cracking now. Blood oozed down from my middle. Gashes appeared everywhere as that energy tried to force its way through my skin. But none of that mattered. I searched and searched and searched. I swore I watched hundreds of thousands of hours of security footage on fast forward until finally I saw it.

I watched as Scott tried to find me. I left him in the crowd to follow that alien. He’d reached out for me….

I watched as a man with steel-gray eyes stabbed him right through the heart with an electro blade. There was nothing his armor could do. The blade was far too sophisticated.

I screamed. The shriek was far louder than any noise the alien could make. It was far louder than anything this room could put up with. It was more than a shriek, see. It was accompanied by a blast of my energy. I might’ve complained previously that I couldn’t control it, but now my lack of control was a good thing. It set off this chain reaction inside me. As my fear surged, so too did the depths of my power. Energy the likes of which I had never imagined rushed out of me. While my light had only managed to pierce a few rays through that black cloud before, now it shone through, dissipating it like the sun to a clinging fog.

No, that alien screamed, his voice echoing loudly through the room. But it was nothing compared to me.

Scott, I bellowed again.

I was still searching through the footage. I hadn’t broken my connection to the station’s security system.

I expected to see Scott being tossed out an airlock, but he wasn’t. That man with steel-blue eyes threw him over his shoulder and walked him out of the trading room.

I kept watching, my eyes darting back and forth, growing wider with every second.

Scott was taken to the heart of the station. There, his armor was removed, and he was hooked up to medical equipment.

I was no longer relying on the footage. I could hack into that medical equipment easily. I knew exactly what it was – just as I understood the readings that were coming back. Scott was… Scott was alive.

For now. He had to escape. For in a rush of understanding, I knew exactly what the In-Betweener had in store for him.

He had minutes. I would get to him. If he had never met me, he’d still be alive. But if I’d never met him, I’d be dead, and so too would the galaxy.

2

Scott Delaney

I was supposed to be dead. I knew that, but I wasn’t. Yet. I kept waiting for the moment to come. That final release – for the flashes of my life to blast through my last waking moments. I wanted to see my parents again. Though it

Reviews for Ever Episode Four

[JennyBrown · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoy Odette C. Bell's work.
This book though has some editing mistakes. There are several instances where the characters Peter and Scott's names are used incorrectly. The individual in the scene is clearly Scot, but he is named as Peter. Unfortunately I didn't take note of exactly where it occurred, but there were 3 separate instances.
I can't get enough of these stories!.
I love it. Thank you for giving me this adventure!