the background the second Stephen closed his eyes. The solid wall changed to a bright orange lattice. A breath rushed out of him. His telepathy must still work on some level. A dull, grey tendril reached out for him through the lattice, turning it a burnt orange colour. Instead of taking him gently, the tendril yanked him inside the space hard.
A rush of air escaped his lungs as it jerked him over to a pulsating Nexus wall. Gone was the bright golden wall with orange tones matching the lattice. In its place was a patchy, black, yellow and dark red that resembled bruising. A heaving wall and erratic energy greeted him. Only when he got close enough did he notice the tiny black veins running through its surface. It had been twenty-four hours since Stephen and Clement had been here. Twenty-four hours since he’d ordered the Indigenes to stop using the Nexus. His decision had been the right one.
Black pumped through the tiny veins marking the smooth surface of the wall. Stephen shuddered to think the same blackness had been inside him, killing him slowly.
The tendril slammed his energy against the bruised wall. New grey tendrils drew out from the wall and connected to his energy. They sucked on his energy. The black veins pulsated hard as though he had become the Nexus’ only food source.
The tendril squeezed him suddenly, forcing a gasp from Stephen on the outside.
He heard Serena ask, ‘Are you okay?’
Despite his immobilised energy, he managed to nod at her.
He saw the problem now. Without a regular supply of Indigene energy, the Nexus wall had turned black. Without Indigenes to infect, the poison could not spread far and wide, so it turned upon itself. The Nexus was killing itself.
Stephen had to stop it.
Another tendril whipped his energy, leaving a trail of fire across his skin on the outside. Inside, his energy, which held the cure, became the Nexus’ next target.
He pushed against the pressure from the squeezing tendril, but it held him tight against the wall. The Nexus bucked and writhed, creating a new ripple that started from his location and travelled full circle. The ripple turned into a shudder as more tendrils exited the wall to feed on him, sucking and draining all life from him. In his unit, Stephen’s body slumped forward. His mind screamed against the assault. The Nexus attacked him like a wild animal in its last dying moments of life.
That’s when he realised the poison still belonged to Tanya. She might be gone, but she had pumped her paranoia into the Nexus’ veins, turning what was good about the space against the Indigenes. He didn’t believe that had been her plan when she’d entered it. The Nexus was an infinite supply of energy but an organic being nonetheless, created out of the Indigenes’ existence. It relied on them to live and had succumbed to the same fate as half of his district. He hoped the others were getting their treatment.
Stephen hesitated, not wanting to hurt the Nexus, but also keen to avoid more pain. The tendrils slapped him harder now and made his body sting in several places. He knew the Nexus tasted the antibodies now, that his energy was fighting against the poison. But the longer he remained inside the Nexus, the more violent the tendrils’ actions became. They stopped feeding his energy to the wall, turning the space dark and insidious. But still they refused to let him go.
Serena’s ethereal sounding voice reached him from the outside. ‘Let me come inside.’
‘No, it’s too dangerous,’ he replied, not sure if he’d spoken out loud or said the words to himself.
More punishment came in swipes and slashes, harder than before.
‘Stephen...’
It was Serena again. Not her ethereal voice; it sounded like she was beside him in his unit.
‘I’m coming in.’
He turned partially to see her energy drift inside. ‘No!’
He delivered the warning aloud, but no sound came. Telepathy facilitated conversation in here, but his was broken. Maybe that’s why the Nexus was being violent with him. He was only half an Indigene now, and less potent, energy-wise.
Serena ignored him and floated her energy to the wall. Before she reached it, a new tendril raced towards her and wrapped itself around her luminous energy.
It slammed her against the wall. He heard her grunt. Without his telepathy he couldn’t speak to her in this sub reality.
New tendrils latched on to her, drinking heavily from this new food source.
In a panic, Stephen tried to disconnect, tried to distract the Nexus from her. He remained helpless as the Nexus’ poison fed into his mate.
But something strange happened. Serena’s energy gave the Nexus a new strength, brightened it from its bruised and battered appearance to a dull grey, then to a lacklustre orange. It was far less bright than its original state, but the Nexus’ improving health was the distraction Stephen needed. He looked up, relieved to see the tendrils were feeding on him again and taking his antibodies.
He opened up his energy, allowing the Nexus to take it all. Serena controlled what it took with a sharp No. Despite its altered state, the Nexus responded to her. He felt her warm influence wash over the tendrils and lessen the intensity of their feed. Before he knew it, the pulsating had slowed and the tendrils had brightened from grey to a washed-out white.
Stephen eased himself out of the tendrils’ loosening grip and floated in the central space. From there, he saw the wall brighten more. The veins disappeared from some locations. In others, the poison continued to make them swell as though routes had been cut off. But his antibodies reached those sites of infection to slow the pulse rate and lighten the black.
Stephen, said Serena. Are you okay?
His telepathy worked partially this close to the Nexus. He could hear Serena, but not reply to her in his mind.
He replied yes, but on the outside, in his unit.
Can you use your voice in here?
‘No,’ he managed to say outside.
I feel a shift in the energy. The antivirus has weakened Tanya’s poison.
He nodded in his unit, unable to do much more than float in the Nexus.
‘All done?’ he asked on the outside.
It’s up to the Nexus now.
She floated to the exit, taking a weak Stephen with her. They exited and Stephen returned what energy was left to his body. He collapsed on the floor, feeling like he could sleep a month.
Someone took his face in their hands. He shot his eyes open to see a glassy-eyed Serena, staring down at him. She was kneeling next to him.
‘I can feel you, even if you can’t feel me.’ She pressed her forehead to his. ‘You’re going to be fine.’