Cross My Mind

GARBA'S CAPTURE

…..

The car speed up on the road and she could hear the two people from the SUV in her head.

“we got a positive I.D. on him and are currently in pursuit. Permission to use fire arms to slow him down Sir” one of the two men said and Mila heard a static stutter, then a man on the other side of the line said.

“permission granted, just be sure there is no collateral damage apart from the car he is in, do not shoot or kill any passerby or I will burn the two of you”.

‘what is happening here, if Garba has already regained his memories and the access to his Neuraface , he should have contacted me. Whoever these people are, I need to escape them first if I want to understand what is going on’ she thought.

She shifted the gar and stepped on the gas even harder, making her go even faster but the SUV sped up just as much and within a minute of reckless racing on the street, the SUV has caught up with her. The car is now side by side of Garba’s car. She turned the steering wheel hard and hit the SUV, causing them to start skidding and turning three hundred and sixty degrees on the road adrift.

Agent Sigma managed to regain control of the car and continued to race after Mila.

The sky is getting darker and the dark clouds have gathered and the wind is chilly. Mila wonders where the road is leading to and hopes that it at least leads to some sort of town where there are people, like that she is sure they wont be firing bullets flying all over when there are people around.

Should check the map and see. She called main menu but there was no response from Garba’s Neuraface.

“I am sure earlier, I was listening to the phone conversation between those guys chasing me so why wont the main menu show up? Has he perhaps not gained his full memories yet, is that why his Neuraface has not rebooted and started functioning properly? But that does not explain how or why I can listen to their phone calls just now” she murmured .

The SUV has become visible again on her side mirror and the road seems to go on forever. She reached out and turned on the dashboard screen with the intention of using the inbuilt map on the car and locating where the hell she is; but the screen has been hit by one of the bullets that Agents Sigma and Delta were shooting at her just a few minutes ago.

To annoy Mila even more, one of the men is hanging from the left window of the car and aiming a gun in her direction, he begins to fire it and from the sound, she can tell that the man has changed his gun and this one is a more powerful gun than the earlier one he was shooting at her with.

The bullets come in exactly as the rain starts to pour down with a loud thunder clap. Mila had to duck down and protect herself as the bullet fly into the car, shattering all the glasses on the windows and blowing off the side mirrors. A few seconds later, the bullets hit the front wheel and Mila was sent tumbling with the car to the road side. The airbag popped and knocked her right back to her seat.

With the speed in which she was moving, dragging the car a few feet before finally coming into a stop.

“I thought they were supposed to capture him alive and bring him to the place that they are detaining me. Why are they shooting as if they are trying to kill him instead?” she murmured to herself as she unbuckle herself from the seat right after the airbag has deflated, blood is running down her nose from colliding with the airbag hard.

As soon as she managed to drag herself out of the car, she stood up just before the SUV doors open and started running into the woods by the road side. The two men got out of their car and followed her in pursuit.

The rain continues to pour heavily and without mercy and every time lightening flashes and the thundering sound follows it, Mila shakes with fear. She knows that the sound cant hurt her yet, she cannot help but react in fear to it.

As she runs through the muddy forest, she realized that she is not hearing the men chasing behind her. She turned around and realized she was all alone in the forest.

“what is going on, why are they not chasing me ?” she asked herself.

Before Mila could realize it, one of the men appeared out of no where, charging straight at her.

“what is going on here, how are they doing this” she ponders but could not figure out an answer. In any case, she has no more chance of outrunning them so she though she might as well take them on while she has the chance one at a time”

She quickly adjusted her stance and prepares to throw at the man all she can. As the man approaches her, she quickly swung a wide kick aiming at his face but could not hit him because he has guessed that she will do that and stopped right at the point where her kick will not reach him. Before she could pull back her leg, he bent down low swept her off her other foot with his leg, causing her to lose balance and fall right in the mud. From out of nowhere, the other agent showed up and the two of them cuffed her and injected her with a substance that put her to sleep right away.

A FEW HOURS EARLIER

****(back at the secret facility)****

Garba awakens in a room with bright light shining all over his eyes, a few second ago he was driving in a race to escape from Agent Sigma and Delta who have been chasing him since he first saw them in the police station where he realized they were sent by Neuratechnologies to capture and bring him to some secret facility.

When his eyes adjusted to the lighting in the room, he stood up and walked around to the mirror and realized that he has switched bodies yet again with Mila. But why is she locked in this unfamiliar room?, he thought and walked to the door to go out and find out where he is. But to Garba’s surprise, he could not open the door because it has been locked from the outside.

“What is going on here, did she get arrested and detained? But this does not look like detention cell. Did she do drugs, this looks like a locked detention room for the mentally imbalanced. Yet there is no way Mila could do that after all, she should be at home in Louisiana.

His eyes blinked fast and all a sudden, floating windows appear in his vision with all sorts of files and folders. He walked back to the bedside and sat, hoping that he could find an answer to why she is locked up and get the hell out of the place.

He started going through the folder until he found the most recent one, he opened the folder and realized it was Mila’s Vision which she recorded somehow and stored it.

“but how is she able to do this, I can only interact with computer devices but she can record her vision, how unfair. Maybe I can find out the true reason why I have this power” he thought and proceeded to open the folder. He played the first video.

“do you want to open immersive memory experience?” a floating window suddenly showed up asking and Garba went ahead and clicked YES. Instantly, all of his vision went dark and slowly, he saw an old man opens and walks into the room. The old man looks readily familiar but Garba could not pinpoint where he knows the man. The man walks up to Mila and tells her a couple of things before he gave her a virtual reality headset, asking her to wear it and watch a video he has prepared for her. Mila slips on the headset and open her eyes.

Garba watched as a pair of blinking lights begin to alternate, forming a rhythm and making a wheezing sound in his ears, he starts to feel dizzy and immediately fainted.

Back in Nigeria

The ran has stopped and the sky has cleared back to its blue color, Mila has been dragged and put inside the SUV that agents Sigma and Delta were chasing her in, she has been put at the back seat where se was laid on the seat and locked inside unconscious. The two agents having captured Garba as they were directed, started to drive from Abuja down southwest towards Lagos where they will be contacted on their next rendezvous location for his transport all the way to the secret facility.

A wheezing sound similar to the one that Mila heard just before she gained back her memories woke her up from her induced slumber. She slowly woke up and sat down without arousing the suspicion of the agents in the front seats of the car that is currently crossing a very long bridge. With a single swoop, she put the chain of her shackle over Agent Sigma’s neck who is driving the car and pulled backwards as hard as she can, choking the agent.

Agent Delta having just realized what was going on quickly started hitting punching Mila in the face and trying to make her release the other agent that is currently choking but trying to control and slow down the car that is currently going at a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour.

Even with the barrage of punches to the face, Mila refused to let go of the agent so agent Delta started strangling her as well. In the first few second she could already feel the difference in the way and se is choking the driver and the way his colleague is choking her.

A few more seconds later, she was at her limit and have to let go of the driver, otherwise she will pass out as well. Just before she passes out, she saw a massage window floating in her peripheral vision with whit looks like a suggestion on it.

“activate cell phone override forced destruction?” it said and Mila shouted “Yes”. Soon as she said yes, another window appeared with a red glow and a warning sign asking her to get away from the cell phone.

In the next three seconds, Mila released Agent Sigma’s neck and watched from the back sea as Agent Delta’s phone exploded in his pocket, burning his chest and neck, forcing him to release her as he fell unconscious.

Having fainted a few seconds ago from strangulation, Agent Sigma’s hands let go of the steering wheel but his feet still on the gas, the car lost control and swerved to the left, skidding and hitting the protective railing on the side of the bridge and breaking it, flying off and splashing into the water.

As the car made contact with the water, Mila’s head hit the seat in front of her so hard that she immediately begin to feel her consciousness leaving her so she quickly unbuckled herself and started getting out of the car that is filling up with water quickly but she was not fast enough. Although she has gotten out of the car, she lost consciousness completely and started sinking down.

At the same time back in the secret facility, Garba woke up having remembered all that has happened back in the secret island, the fake virtual games, the killings and all the cruel experiments he and Mila have passed through. He also learned of Reece’s death and finally understand why the mysterious old man earlier in the memories looked familiar. “Akihiro Amida, the next time I see you face to face, you better have me restrained because I will beat the s**t out of you” Garba swears to himself.

In that instant, a sudden pain emanated from his head, as if he has suddenly collided his head with some thing, in the next few seconds, he passed out and everything went dark.

When he opens his eyes, he was drowning under water. Just above him a boat floats, he saw the splash of a person who has just dived into the water from the boat. His body feels very weak and he can no longer struggle, he passed out again under the water.

Having passed out, he found himself back in his ten years old body in a flashback of his past, he was standing by the door watching his father Mr. Danladi beat his mother. To his right hand side, His sister Salma stood sobbing and shouting. “ mommy, mommy, please don’t hurt my mommy daddy”. This is a dream he tells himself and suddenly, he was in his bed with lingering headache, his father walked into the room and he knows exactly what happens next because he has had this same nightmare over and over again.

His father walked to him with a look that strike a nerve in his chest, he has forgotten about all of this, but keeps wondering why the memories keep haunting him as flashback nightmares. The man sat next to him and he complains about his headache as expected.

The next thing he knows, the man is busy strangling him, he could feel the life about to be squeezed out of him as his eyes widen and widen, with tears rolling down his cheeks but the man did not let him go until he blacks out again.

When his eyes open up next, he was tied up on a bed inside an ambulance with a body zipped in a body bag on the bed next to him.

“You have finally woken up, you are one big son of a b***h and I hope you are prepared to pay for what you did to Delta. I will personally make sure I enjoy whatever f****d up thing Akihiro has prepared for you” Agent Sigma, who is standing over him said.

“it seems like Mila didn’t get caught so easily on this side either, now that I remember everything, I have to contact MEDULLA immediately before they shut him down”. Garba thought and started to type a massage using Thought to word function of his Neuraface to send a massage to MEDULLA and find out what is going on since Dr. Reece is dead.

‘now that I am captured too, I am sure Akihiro will soon be opening our skulls to get his data' Garba thought.

Back in the secret facility, Mila has just woken up in her body to find out that Garba has left her a massage.

The massage contain information that he believes will help her expand her Connection to even farther devices and start their escape plan even before he is brought to the facility.

He also left her MEDULLA’S address and asked that she should start trying to contact it because it may be their last way out of Akihiro’s hand this time around.