Free Ouroboros 2: Before by Odette C. Bell Page B

dimensions, and the time gates. But when it came time to writing up his report on this mission, it would be a hell of a tale.
    ‘ Is there anything else I need to know?’ Nida suddenly questioned. ‘What should we avoid? I mean, apart from dressing like a prostitute,’ she blinked quickly, ‘if this nation has been at war, won’t they have an active military? Guards or police or something? Won’t they be suspicious if we run into them?’
    He nodded. ‘Yes, this province has an active military, and from what I can tell, they are vicious and suspicious. And double yes, we will want to avoid them.’
    She sighed heavily. ‘What else? What’s the current political situation? And if they close the gates to the city at night, aren’t we going to require some kind of identification? I mean if they are as paranoid as they sound, I’m sure they’re not going to let just anybody walk into their city. Come to think of it, while we both now speak perfect Vexian, do we have accents? Will they mistake us as travelers from one of the other provinces?’
    Though she had once been distracted, now she was focused, and she was bombarding him with questions.
    He had to put his hands up. ‘The short answer is I don’t know.’
    She stared at him with wide eyes. ‘That’s not good enough,’ she said in a small voice, ‘last night you had to shoot a guy, and while that worked in the middle of nowhere, I’m not sure it will work again.’
    He conceded her point by offering a sigh. ‘I know it’s not good enough, but I really don’t know what else to say.’
    ‘ Carson,’ she suddenly clutched her hands into fists, and he could see that she was digging her fingernails hard into her palms. It was likely only the thick fabric of her gloves that stopped her from cutting herself. ‘I don’t want to go into that city if I don’t know what will happen. I know I was all for it last night, but I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to —’
    ‘ We don’t have an option,’ he snapped. ‘Unless the entity can tell us exactly what to do, then we have to figure it out for ourselves. And the only plan I can come up with that makes any sense is to gather as much data as we can. From scientific to historical, if we could just find mentions of anything that could suggest the existence of a bridge between dimensions or time gates, then we’ll have a hope. If not . . .’ he trailed off.
    ‘ Carson,’ she repeated, still digging her fingernails into her palms, ‘I’m terrified,’ she said simply.
    ‘ I don’t know what to do,’ he snapped back, ‘just . . . tell us, god dammit,’ he suddenly shouted.
    She stumbled backwards, startled.
    ‘ I’m not talking to you; I’m talking to the entity,’ he clarified through clenched teeth. ‘Now tell us, for crying out loud. Stop playing games. If you know something, help us out. If going to the city is suicide, let us know. You must know more than you told us. So please, please help us.’
    Though Nida had stumbled back, and her mouth dropped open from surprise, now she froze on the spot. Slowly her lips closed, and as they did, a trickle of blue light escaped over them. ‘We do not know. We cannot sense the existence of a bridge between dimensions until we are up close. They are only as large as a fraction of an atom. We are not capable of sensing whether this place has one. We must simply search until we find.’
    Carson shook his head bitterly. ‘That’s not good enough. This planet is enormous, and it is split up into three warring factions. We can’t exactly wander around each of them looking for a crack in an atom,’ he spat, all of the complicated and confused emotions he had felt that day suddenly surging into one ball of anger. It sat in his stomach, burning bright and hot.
    ‘ You must search,’ the entity spoke through Nida, ‘find. Look.’
    ‘ This task is impossible. There must be some way to figure out where the dimension bridge is in this time zone