Something Intervened

Ed woke a little after dark. His torso was bare and his vision still slightly blurred but he could feel a cold breeze brush against his bare skin. Unusual for the Stronghold. He tried to move his hands but couldn’t, so he inspected his immediate surroundings as best he could with his blurred vision and found that it was pitch black all around him. It was only after he tried to get up from the wooden chair that he had been sitting on that his feet were bound. He leaned forward to fiddle with the binds, and realised that his hands were gone. And so was his arms. Shocked, Ed tried to jump up, causing his body to jerk backward awkwardly. He tried to speak, but even that came out as mere grunts and low-pitched squeals.

            “Mr Swardt,” heard Ed as he still tried to make sense of it all. He closed his eyes and swore -though he was sure that all what had come out of his mouth was another grunt- after recalling the raspy voice. “You have undoubtedly already identified us,” the voice continued.

            “We have managed to temporarily shield you from the blast,” another voice said. Ed remembered then that before he had blacked out, he was shocked so hard that he fell down on his back – halfway across the secret room. That must have been the blast that the second voice, a woman, was speaking of. “You are safe. For now.”

            Ed tried to speak but couldn’t. His arms still missing. He had already figured out that they weren’t bound; he could feel them flailing and jerking about as he attempted to get up and loosen the binds on his feet, though he knew that they were…gone. It was a ghostly feeling that one could not explain.

            “We have word that Mr Erasmus will be launching an assault on the mansion that you have adequately named the Cage.”

            Ed tried to laugh the information off. So far as he knew, Ian was only planning the assault, but he hadn’t thought it to be so soon, and without his presence.

            “You also undoubtedly think that we have no way of delaying his assault,” the raspy voice continued. “He will be met by someone familiar to him, and he will be forced to change his plans. You are to return to South Africa.”

            Ed shook his Ed, though he had no idea how exactly that action had looked from the Counsel’s perspective. He had no intention to return to South Africa until he had found out exactly how to get that bastard of an Oracle to show a weakness. He had to do it first. Needed to.

            “Elizabeth will not be harmed,” another voice began, which made Ed stop his jerking and sit quietly on the chair. Ed’s heartbeat increased tenfold and his breathing became erratic. His eyes, though rolling in his sockets, was wide open at the sound of the new voice, though when they continued, the first voice spoke again; “The Oracle, however unaware, is serving us quite efficiently.”

            Ed started jerking again as he tried to make contact with his lost limbs. How the counsel had managed to see through both of his plans, he was unsure, though the more pressing matter was why he had just heard who he thought to be Aaliyah speaking to him.

            “The girl that is in your old partner’s custody will remain unharmed for as long as you are able to let your self-proclaimed rise go. The Black Arrow will once again be subdued and you will return home. Inform Ian of this. Tell him that his new plans – what he had made due to a fateful intervention – will not suffice and that you will have to regroup and wait for our instruction.”

            Ed jerked forward, his vision suddenly became white, and Ed flew forward. His head hit something hard and he slumped over against the wall he knew to be the wall of the secret compartment that housed the generator.

            His arms, though scorched slightly, was right where they were supposed to be. Burn marks ran in constricted lines down his shoulder and reached up to his wrist before dissipating in millions of little branches into his hands. The excruciating pain in his right arm that had haunted him for more than ten years had returned, but he was glad to be back.

            As he attempted to stand up, he noticed that the hole in the wall was open. He glanced at the generator, the pulsing green orb had changed to a pulsing blue orb.

            “Sheila?” Ed breathed as he tried to get up once more.

            “Commander.”

            Relief overcame Ed as he heard the familiar, uncorrupted articulated voice of the VI he had personally chosen as CNet’s backup all those years ago. Ed attempted to get up once more but fell down again.

            Safu barged through the hole with a firearm, but after noticing Ed on the floor, decided to get him up and out of there first.

They were all in the main hall. Safu had set Ed down on one of the huge red sofas that lined the bits of wall that weren’t covered with racks full of ancient books. Ed’s hands were burnt bright red, and the lines that followed his arms looked like circuitry imbued with blood. Ed had explained what had just happened, and after asking Sheila to start her attempts to contact Ian had failed numerous times, Elizabeth came up the stairs with one of Ed’s arrows.

            She handed it to him silently, without saying a word. The moment the arrow left her hand, she seemed to almost fall over before shaking her head and smiling embarrassingly at the two men who were staring at her with confusion. “I had a very strange dream,” she said while her bright red face seemed to cool off a bit. “Oh my God what happened!” she then called and fell down in front of Ed, unsure if she should touch his arms or not.

            “A corrupt AI happened,” Ed answered and lifted his arms and hands into the air, flexing them a bit so he could see whether the burning had stopped. It didn’t. Ed then smiled at her and beckoned for her to sit down as he picked the arrow up and looked at it.

            The moment Ed actually looked at the body of the arrow, instead of merely staring at it, his fingers, now imbued with bloody lines that he hoped would go away soon, suddenly felt as cold as ice before returning to normal just as fast as it had turned cold.

            Ed closed his eyes and shook his head as two quick thoughts rushed through his head. Thoughts that wasn’t his; one that informed him that he should find some way to reply to the message, and another that told him he had found a way to communicate through the arrows.

            He had no idea what to make of it as his own thoughts returned to him and his eyes opened. He knew exactly who it was that had sent the message, though the problem was how he would reply, though it seemed that problem would have to go on the back-burner as it seemed that he would be seeing Ian in person sometime soon.

            Ed got up. His scorched, third degree-burnt arms yelling out in pain as he continued to tell the other two of the future plans. But not before he had his arms checked out and treated…