A SINGLE MOMENT

Major Richard Blaine has just escaped a deadly booby-trap, but now, he and two other Spartans are separated from the others.

How will he protect them ... any of them? Is he capable of doing so?

A SINGLE MOMENT

“The headwaters of Merde Creek are a cruel and treacherous expanse.”

– Major Richard Blaine

 

Theo called up to us. “Are you three all right?”

Rachel, who wasn’t fooled at all, (nor were any of the other Spartans), laughed down. “Yes, Sergeant-Major, I am perfectly fine.”

There was the beginning of chuckling, but Theo’s glare evaporated it.

I fumed. One lone female amongst a group of men would sooner or later spark dissension. I would have to do something.

‘Of all the things about which you have to worry, my champion, that is not one of them. I will take care of that presently.’

Great. Now, I had another thing to worry about. Sentient had a unique way of “dealing” with things.

‘Why, thank you.’

“Any decade, old boy,” Cloverfield called over, still precariously clinging to the eggshell smooth wall.

“I have all the trip wires dealt with, ” he said, “but I do not want to enter alone. Pick that door lock, and let’s be about our business, shall we?”

Rachel, being of Pandora’s lineage, asked, “Where did that cable come from, and where did it go?”

I shook my head. “After I pick this truly enormous lock, I will tell you.”

“Is picking that lock safe?”

I sighed, “Nurse Reynolds, nothing we will do from here on out will be safe.”

“Not what I wanted to hear.”

“Real truth seldom is.”

“Any decade!” reminded Cloverfield. “I’m beginning to slip here.”

I set about following Sentient’s instructions on how to manipulate the strange skeleton key which had sprouted from my right forefinger once again.

To vent my frustration at the flashes of things to come Sentient was showing me that in no way would calm the Spartans, I muttered,

‘This whole damn needless war is like watching two bald men fighting over a comb.”

Rachel studied me as I worked the lock open, “What is truly bothering you, Richard?”

I almost sobbed,

“This whole madness has been forced on me. I am not up to the challenge … and those I care about will suffer for it.”

She gripped my left arm hard.

“Oh, Richard! None of us chose this damnable war or our place in it. It is your doubt that will kill us not your lack. I have seen you at your worst … at death’s door literally.”

She sniffed back tears.

“I have seen you dig deep within yourself when you thought others needed you, when they had no one else. I saw you dig so deep that it was etched in lines of pain and determination on your face.”

Rachel wiped away those tears with an angry swipe of a hand.

“You found your anchor of great strength. It was not your Sentient … not your love for your Helen.”

She pounded a forefinger into my chest.

“It was there. There! Call it what you will … your heart … your soul … that which separates you from the beasts who call themselves men.”

Rachel turned my chin to face her.

“Well, you bloody well find that anchor now. You find it. You hold fast to it, and you rise. Damn you, you rise! We need you. Your Helen needs you. Bullocks, your Sentient needs you.”

I smiled weakly. “Yes, ma’am.”

Sentient murmured in my mind:

‘All the energy in the universe is evenly present in all places at the same time. We don’t get energy, we release energy.

The triggering mechanism to release energy is desire.

When you have a strong enough desire to do something, you will always have the energy to do it.’

Cloverfield cried out, “I’m slipping!”

I smiled wearily to myself. 

Showtime.

 

“Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.”

- Jorge Luis Borges