DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
The-Chronicles-Of-Bournemouthshire
HTML https://thechroniclesofbournemout.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: NaNoWriMo Creations
*****************************************************
#Post#: 4620--------------------------------------------------
Time split I (Can't be doing with the repeats)
By: Kiera Pearson Date: November 5, 2013, 6:27 am
---------------------------------------------------------
TIME SPLITINTRODUCTION
I woke with a start, but around me it was dark, as if my eyes
were still closed. My head throbbed with a horrible pain, as if
someone had hit me with a large... something, I couldn't
remember. In fact, I couldn't remember anything prior to waking
up here. I couldn't remember my name, how I got here, or why I
was here. I gave up looking for other information about me and
decided to look around this room I was in. I stood up, slowly.
My eyes had now adjusted to the light and I was now able to make
out the edges of this small room. The room was empty, no
furniture to speak of. The brick walls were blackened and
charred, almost as if someone had wanted it darkened. Suddenly I
smelt it, the faint smell of gas, growing stronger. "Brilliant!"
I thought to myself, "I am going to be gassed to death!" no
sooner had I said this when flames erupted from the walls -
flamethrowers, they must have been powered by the gas! I was no
longer going to die of gas; I was going to be incinerated! A jet
of flame shot past me and I ducked quickly, but not quickly
enough – my hair was singed. I found a safe corner and cowered,
I didn’t know what to do. I was going to die. I felt something
in my pocket, vibrating and ringing. I fumbled with my pocket
and tried to get whatever this was out. I reached in and found a
mobile phone. I answered it immediately, fresh out of other
things to do! “Hello? Hello?” I shouted into the mouthpiece. A
soft voice, barely audible, answered. “You have interfered with
my plans for the last time, Commander” I recognised the voice,
but I didn’t know where from – another thing to add to my list
of things I didn’t know. Although I now knew that I was a
commander, if nothing else. The phone clicked off, and I was
left alone again. I threw the phone against the wall and it
shattered. So here I was, in a room full of flames and about to
die. I inhaled a load of smoke and I choked. My eyelids began to
feel heavy and I dropped to my knees. The last thing I
remembered before I passed out was a bright blue flash and then,
nothing.
CHAPTER 1
I opened my eyes, everything was bright and blurry and I closed
them again. I took a deep breath and opened them again. Where
was I? My eyes started focusing, it took some time, but they
were focusing. The walls were a pristine white with a thin blue
line going round the entirety of the room. The sun was flooding
in; it hurt my eyes to look at it. I fell out of the bed I was
in onto a soft, carpeted floor. I crawled towards the large
window that was on the far side of the room, it was at least
fifteen feet away and my legs were useless. I dragged myself,
using my arms as propulsion. I reached the window and looked
out. What I saw then was not expected at all. What lay before me
was a futuristic metropolis, filled with skyscraper after
skyscraper. From the window I was looking out from, the city
seemed small below me. I sat there marvelling at it, and then I
saw them, zipping around like a squirrel on caffeine – flying
cars. I backed away sharply; something was wrong, very wrong. I
had died in that small room, how could I be here now? “I must be
going mad, or dead.” I thought to myself. As I was thinking this
I was interrupted by the sound of someone at the door, which had
slid silently open when I had been at the window. It was a
woman, wearing a lab coat and glasses, with a stethoscope round
her neck. She must have been a doctor. She was holding a device,
it looked as if it was made of glass, but some sort of computer
interface was present on the glass, such that she could see
notes on me. I could tell this by the picture showing through
the back. “Jonny?” she said, looking at me, she had a sharp
voice, like a teacher. “Whaa?” I replied, I still hadn’t quite
got used to this, and her speaking took me by surprise. “Jonny?”
Her gaze didn’t shift a bit “Jonny Lane?”
“I, I don’t remember” I looked back to the window, and out to
the metropolis. “Where am I? The last thing I remember was being
in this burning small brick room, and now I am here!”
“I believe the appropriate question here is ‘When are you?’
because you are in the year 2050”
“Wait, wait, wait” I stammered, I found it hard to make the
words. “How can I be in the year 2050?”
“It is very simple,” the woman’s voice had softened a little;
“You are in the year 2050 because one of our operatives noticed
you were going to die, and then saved you before you did.”
“But... why?” I felt as if I was going to pass out again.
“For now, that is classified, due to the situation, but you will
most likely find out later” she offered a hand and I took it,
she helped me to my feet. “What situation?” I asked.
“I am not cleared to tell you that, I will leave that to the
boss.”
“Well, when will I see him?” I asked, interrupting her.
“If you had let me finish,” her voice had gone sharp again, “I
have been instructed to bring you to him, this way, please.” I
hobbled towards the door; it slid open quickly, but noiselessly.
I stepped through it into a bustling corridor; full of people
who wore similar attire to the woman I was with at the moment.
They were all wearing lab coats and stethoscopes. The corridor
looked similar to the room – pristine white walls and about a
metre up from the floor was a glowing blue strip. All the people
had those glass note devices, and they were constantly writing
away on them. “This way please.” The woman gestured to the right
of the room. “Follow me” she said, all niceness had gone, and
she had a job to do. We walked down corridor after corridor, all
looking the same – it was a miracle that this woman knew where
she was going! Eventually we reached a door; it slid open and
revealed a glass lift. “Commander Lane, this is where I leave
you” She pressed a button inside the lift. “I am going to the
100th floor?” I asked.
“Yes Commander, that is where his office is.” Before I could
respond the door slid shut and the woman walked away. I turned
around and looked at the large city spread before me, all
pristine white, full of flying cars of all shapes and sizes –
there were no cars on the ground. Everything about this city
seemed tranquil. I was going up and up and up; I was leaving the
city behind. This must have been the tallest building in the
whole city, and still I was going up! When I was much higher
than all the other buildings and I was starting to feel a little
queasy. A small speaker made a ping-type noise and I turned
around, the door slid open. My eyes were greeted by a room, it
was fairly large but not particularly light. The carpet was a
dark green and the walls were black, the only light came from
the large chandelier type light, hanging from the ceiling, and
the light from the many glass computer screens spread around the
walls. These screens were filled with information about the
world, there were globes and graphs that meant nothing to me – I
felt way out of my depth. I stepped forward and noticed a large
desk, probably made of mahogany, at the other end of the room, a
man was sitting at the desk talking to a woman who was standing
beside the desk, I couldn’t see them very well, they were
silhouetted. As I walked slowly towards the desk, my presence
was noticed, the man stood up and the woman backed away
slightly. I felt like I was interrupting something important. I
walked more quickly towards the desk. “Commander Lane” the man
said, in a voice that reminded me of Brian Blessed, “I am the
Boss”
“Hi” was all I could muster, but then, filled with some new
found confidence I couldn’t define I exploded. “Please can you
explain where I am? How exactly did I end up in 2050? More to
the point, why was I saved from dying?”
“That was a very polite explosion” I heard the woman mutter
“Calm down” The Boss spoke in a manner that seemed to calm me
down no end. “Thought you would have a lot of questions, most
people here do, and I will attempt to answer them one at a time.
Firstly, you are in my office on the 100th floor of the Time
Association building in London. You were saved from dying by one
of our operatives, Kiera, who went back in time to save you just
before you died. Why did we do this? To prevent global, and
galactic catastrophe.” I let this sink in.
“Global catastrophe?” I was sceptical “Everything seems alright
out there to me!”
“We are aware of this, but this version of reality hangs in the
balance, balancing on the edge of a knife, soon, something will
knock it off and it will fall.” The Boss looked at me sternly
“You need to go back and defeat Enigma”
“Wait, who is Enigma?” I asked, there were so many questions and
more seemed to keep cropping up!
“He doesn’t remember anything!” Kiera was speaking now, “What
about the plan?
“It doesn’t matter that he can’t remember at the moment, the
plan is unchanged”
“Wait, wait, what plan? Why will no-one give me a straight
answer?” I was getting a little annoyed now
“Straight answers are boring” Kiera muttered, she clearly wasn’t
happy with the situation.
“The plan is to send you and Kiera back to 2013, where you must
stop Enigma from completing his plan and killing you.”
“But… but…” I stammered, I couldn’t get to grips with all this.
“There is no time for buts” Kiera interrupted my train of
thought “This reality will start to break down soon”
“You will be issued with weapons and supplies from 2050 before
you leave tomorrow morning – this should give you a high chance
of success, especially as you are working with Kiera, she is our
best operative.”
“Any questions?” Kiera asked, as if this all was as completely
routine as ordering a pizza. She stood before me, this was
Kiera, the woman who saved my life. She was about the same
height as me, her brown hair tied back in a ponytail, she had
brilliant brown eyes that I felt myself getting lost in. She was
wearing combat trousers and a black t-shirt. She was wearing
some sort of device over her t-shirt, it was slivery in colour
and glowing blue, like most things in the future. “Hello…?” said
Kiera, I must have zoned out. I tried to remember what she had
said before I zoned out, erm, questions. “What is that device on
your chest?” I asked. “This,” she said, gesturing to the device,
“is a time manipulator, it transports me through time and space”
“So like a time machine then?”
“Yeah, a bit like that”
“So, that…” I said, pausing a little and staring at it. It
looked complicated, it looked a little bit like a big ‘X’ on her
chest, it went over her shoulders and I assumed it did the same
on her back, in the centre there was a big blue glowing orb,
about 3 inches in diameter, there were several running wires
exposed, but protected by clear insulation. “That is what I used
to save you” Kiera said, nodding slightly as she did so. I
couldn’t stop looking at it, this gadget thing attached to her
chest is what saved my life, 37 years ago!
“I am sorry to break this up” The Boss was back to Brian Blessed
mode, “but you two need to head down to the kitchens to get some
supper before going to bed – you have a big day tomorrow, time
travel is no simple matter!” Kiera and I looked at each other
and started walking towards the lift, the door of which had just
opened. “And one last thing” Kiera and I turned round, “Good
luck” The Boss sat back at his desk and opened a newspaper.
Silently, Kiera and I stepped into the lift.
CHAPTER 2
I woke up to the sound of electronic buzzing, bleary eyed, I
looked for the source of the noise. It was one of those glass
computer things, sitting at my bed, serving as an alarm clock. I
picked it up and tried to find out a way to turn it off,
eventually I found the switch and pressed it. The alarm clock
fell silent. I got up slowly. The clock on the wall told me it
was 7:30, Kiera and I were due to leave at 10:30. Three hours, I
thought to myself. I pulled yesterday’s clothes on (they smelt a
bit) and dragged myself to the door, which slid open
automatically. I stepped outside my room and I was in the
corridor again, the kitchen was down in C block and I was in B
block, I would have to go left, into a lift and walk down a
corridor for a bit. I started walking down the corridor, there
were hardly any people about. I walked for about 250 metres
before finding the lift. I went in. The futuristic lift novelty
was starting to wear off, even after just one day of being in
2050. I got to the correct level and followed my nose to the
kitchen. Kiera was already there. She was eating a bowl of what
looked like porridge, “Good morning Commander” she said, she
seemed awfully perky for this time in the morning. “I trust you
slept well, please collect breakfast from the machine over
there. You need to finish breakfast by 0830 and be down to the
stock room by 0900”
“Right,” I said, wearily, not really taking in what she said.
“Once you are there,” Kiera continued regardless “you will be
issued with your own time manipulator, weapons and gadgets”
“OK” I said, trying to remember what I had been told so she
didn’t have to repeat it later. Kiera left and I was left alone.
I wandered over to the machine Kiera had pointed out not two
minutes ago. There were bowls next to it, so I picked one up,
put it under the machine and pressed the button. Out came the
porridgey like substance that Kiera had had for breakfast. It
looked repulsive, I have never been a fan of porridge and didn’t
want to try now. I found a spoon and sat down at a table, I was
all alone. I raised the spoon to my lips and tried a bit, it
wasn’t too bad, it tasted a bit like apples and a bit like egg,
it was altogether bearable and I managed to finish it. I went
back to my room and had a shower, never more had I appreciated
the warm water! I got out of the shower and looked for my
clothes, neatly on my bed were piled clean operative clothes –
the black t-shirt and the combat trousers, my other clothes had
gone. I pulled the clothes on, they were a good fit, I assumed
they must have read the sizes on my other clothes, or at least,
that is what I hoped. I got on another lift, this time, from the
other direction and went down to the second basement. The doors
slid open, the basement was not at all like the rest of the time
association building, it was a fairly large room, with chrome
plated walls, giving the whole room a darker look, along one
wall were lots of computers, but these were completely unlike
the ones in the Boss's suite, these had wires running everywhere
making the whole thing look untidy, the screens were cracked in
places on most of the screens, but this apparently did not
matter as the screens were still working. There were lots of
gadgets on the opposite wall - time manipulators and lots and
lots of guns. I could see Kiera looking at the guns,
occasionally picking one up and looking down its scope or
feeling how it fitted in her hand. “Hello” a voice suddenly said
to me, I looked over at Kiera but she was still looking at guns
on the wall, I looked around for where the voice could have come
from but I couldn’t see anyone “Down here” the voice said, as if
he had said it several million times before. I looked down,
stood before me was a man, about three feet high, wearing a lab
coat, stained and burned with goodness knows what! His face was
filled with the biggest moustache I had ever seen – it made the
rest of his face look tiny! He also wore huge glasses that sat
on what you could see of his nose, everything else on his face
looked tiny, including his eyes, raising the question of why he
needed such big glasses. I was about to start thinking about
this but the man spoke “My name is Rob Smart” the man said “but
some people just call me smart!” he chuckled at his own joke. I
looked over at Kiera, she was giving me a look that seemed to
say ‘it is the same for everyone’ I looked back at Smart and
said “Commander Lane, reporting for duty”
“Yes, yes, I know who you are!” Mr Smart looked at me “You are
here to be fitted with a time manipulator and to provide both
you and Kiera with weapons, is this correct?” He seemed much
snappier now, and his moustache twitched with every syllable he
spat out. Maybe I should have laughed at his joke. A brief
silence followed. “Yes, that is correct” I said, filling the
horrible silence.
“Good” Smart was back to being chirpy, “here is your time
manipulator, coded to your DNA, it will work for you, and only
you”
“How did you get my DNA?” I asked, not really sure if I wanted
to know the answer to this question but intrigued all the same.
“Oh we took a blood sample while you were asleep last night, you
don’t mind, do you?”
“No, not at all” I said, in a tone that was only slightly
sarcastic. I did mind, I minded a lot! The only reason I did not
convey my serious dissatisfaction was that I did not want to see
Smart’s snappy side again, especially as he could just pull some
gadget off the wall and vaporise me! “Right then” Smart was
still chirpy, apparently my sarcasm had not shown that much. He
waddled over to the time manipulators along the wall, pulled
over a small stepladder and climbed it. He picked a time
manipulator off the wall and waddled back to me. “Here, try this
on for size” he said to me, I took it, expecting a really heavy
weight, but I was surprised – it was as light as a loaf of
bread! I looked at it, it looked nothing like Kiera’s – well, it
did in colour and style, but it wasn’t an ‘X’ shape, it was just
a small rhombus shaped thing. I looked at it, there were no
straps, no possible way of attaching it to myself! Smart
apparently picked up on my confusion, “Hold it to your chest,
blue orb facing outwards” I did so, and as I did, the device
beeped and out from the middle of the device flew out four
tentacle like bits of metal, one from each corner. They wrapped
around my shoulders and across my back, they adjusted to the
perfect comfort level and then spread out to form some sort of
armour – now I could see the ‘X’ shape, as on Kiera’s. “A
perfect fit, like always” said Smart, beaming. “How is it so
light?” I asked, looking at the device that would, for the
foreseeable future, be stuck to my chest. “Ah well you see, it
is a made from a Titan....”
“We don’t have time for this.” Kiera said, interrupting “Now,
what weapons have you got for us?” asked Kiera. Smart
re-adjusted his glasses, he hadn’t expected that. “Right,
weapons” he looked at my empty holsters, He waddled over to the
wall of weapons and found his stepladder again – I could now see
why Kiera was hurrying Smart, if he was going to have to do this
for every weapon we could have been there for a while. Smart
came back and handed Kiera and I a gun each, they were pistols,
but not like I had ever seen before, they seemed, bigger and
there was a green light when a clip would have been. I did not
ask, and hoped Kiera would explain later. “Kiera, you can put
yours away, you know how it works, just check your coding.”
“Yep, coded correctly” Kiera said as she holstered the gun.
“I suppose you are wondering what I mean by ‘coding’, yes?”
Smart looked at me
“Yeah, what is that?” Kiera gave me a stern look “In a nutshell”
I added quickly, her face relaxed.
“hold the gun as you would any other” Smart watched as I did so,
as I did, a blue trim on the side of the gun lit up, I was
stunned! How did that work? Smart almost read my mind with his
answer “I will only work for you – it is coded to your DNA”
“Cool.” I said, not wanting to look like a toddler with a new
toy
“Here are your assault rifles” I had barely holstered my pistol
when a small box, about the size of a large mobile phone was
thrust into my hand. I looked at it – it did not look like an
assault rifle, there was a small covered red button on one side,
but this was clearly not an assault rifle. I stared at it in
disbelief. Kiera had already holstered hers.
“Go on, press it” Smart had clearly noticed me eyeing up the red
button, I pressed it, not sure what to expect. From this small
box folded out a full size assault rifle, lightweight like
everything seemed to be in the future with the green light where
the clip should have been on the pistol. “Laser bullets, of
course” Kiera added, pressing the red button on the top. The gun
folded itself back up, “You should be able to fire about 500
shots without recharging, recharging takes about 30 seconds for
a full charge. I holstered the box.
“You two need to head up to the departure zone now” Smart
saluted us. Kiera saluted back and I followed suit. “Goodbye, Mr
Smart” I said “Thank you for the supplies”
“It is a pleasure” Smart said, he was beaming as Kiera and I
walked towards the lift. The lift doors slid open and we stepped
inside. Kiera pressed a button – ‘R’, I assumed that meant
‘Roof’ “So how did you get involved with this?” I asked, looking
at Kiera
“I joined after secondary school, the Boss is my father.”
“Really?” I was surprised at this, I had not expected this, but
then again, I have not been able to expect anything in 2050!
We stepped out of the lift, we were on the roof. I stepped out,
tentatively; I had never been good with heights. Kiera, however,
strode out as if she had done it yesterday, I then realised, she
had. The Boss was standing there next to a landing pad, this
must be where we would depart 2050. “Step onto the pad please”
The Boss boomed. I composed myself and walked onto the pad.
“Where am I sending them?” asked the man sitting behind a
computer wired to the pad. “Can we not just control then
directly from the manipulators?” I asked, looking for some sort
of control panel.
“Well, you can,” said Kiera, “You control it from the control
panel that pops out, but it is much easier to let the people
here do it, they know what they are doing – especially as we
will be travelling in space as well as time.”
“Right,” I said, I had serious butterflies in my stomach, I was
so nervous. The machines around the pad started whirring, louder
and louder until it was unbearable. The machine started to glow
– a bright blue, it was blinding. My body felt as if it was
being ripped apart from the inside. I closed my eyes, willing it
to end, there was a high pitched sound and I opened my eyes – we
were no longer in 2050.
CHAPTER 3
I looked around; we were in some sort of alley. I saw a large
dustbin and there were tin cans and pizza boxes strewn around
it, it was raining. “So, where exactly are we?” I whispered to
Kiera.
“We are in an alley, about five hundred metres away from
Enigma’s headquarters, if you look round the corner you will be
able to see it” Kiera said, knowledgeably, she had clearly been
briefed on every detail before the mission started. I started to
get up, but my legs turned to jelly and I fell down. “The first
time you consciously time travel, that always happens” Kiera
looked at me, “Although, you do seem stronger than the others –
they usually throw up.” I managed a smile. We waited for a few
minutes and I got up, I crept to the edge of the alley and
looked round. There was a stretch of road, about five hundred
metres long \and there was a gate, guarded by four guards, all
heavily armed. “There are loads of them!” I said, panicking.
Kiera looked round, and stuck her head back. “Jonny, there are
four.”
“That is a problem!” I was completely exasperated
“Get your pistol, moron” Kiera said, while drawing hers “I trust
you know how to use a gun! Now, you take the two on the left and
I will take the two on the right – one shot will do it for each,
these laser bullets are good like that”
“So five hundred laser bullets in the assault rifles is...?” I
began to trail off, hoping Kiera would finish my sentence, she
did “Overkill” was what she said “Now, ready in three, two, one,
go!” We jumped out of the alley, I fired at the two guards on
the left as instructed – the gun made a soft ‘pew’ sound as I
fired it. The laser bullets slammed into the guard’s chest and
knocked him clean over. Kiera had also disposed of her two
guards. “See,” she said “no problem.” She walked towards the
gate, holstering her pistol and deploying her assault rifle as
she did. I ran to catch up and grabbed my assault rifle as well,
deploying it. Five hundred laser bullets = five hundred kills. I
still couldn’t get my head around that. “So what do we do now?
Knock?” I asked as we got to the door.
“Well, we could do that,” said Kiera “Or we could break the lock
and break in”
“That could work”
“Of course it could work – I thought of it!” Kiera reached into
one of the pockets in her combat trousers and pulled a device
about twice as long as her hand out, half was a handle with a
single yellow button and the other was about half the thickness
of a pencil and stuck out like a skewer. She inserted the skewer
like device into the lock and pressed the yellow button. The
lock started to glow red, red hot. Then the whole door started
to glow red, I could feel the heat and I was standing two metres
away! The door then glowed white hot and melted, leaving a small
puddle of molten metal on the ground which cooled almost
instantly. I stood staring at this pool of molten metal. “What
were you expecting?” Kiera said “A lock picker? A explosive that
destroys the lock? Boring!” I was speechless. We stepped inside
the headquarters, it was dark, lit only by small red lights hung
from the ceiling, giving only a little light. Apparently we were
being watched because a few seconds later an alarm went off. I
looked on my gun for some sort of torch, I found a button marked
torch and pressed it – the torch flicked on. I almost wished
that I hadn’t – there before us were guards, loads of them,
surrounding us. I froze absolutely still, I didn’t want to give
them any reason to shoot us. I quickly looked over to Kiera, who
had done exactly the same thing – some things never change in
military training, or whatever training Kiera had. Our hands
were bound and our pistols taken from us. Luckily our assault
rifles had slipped under the radar – why would these guys want a
couple of small boxes? However we could not reach them, even if
we had wanted to. “Take them to Enigma” one guard said. “We
don’t all need to go!” said another
“We’ll take them” the first guard was speaking again. All the
other guards got the message and dispatched, leaving only two
guards to bring us to Enigma. We were dragged on the floor in
the general direction of, well, we didn’t know where! We were
dragged down corridor after corridor (They seemed to be all I
saw since I came to the future and went back). The first guard
turned to the other guard and whispered (if you could call it
whispering – I could hear everything he was saying) “You know,
save them going all the way to Enigma for them to just be
killed, we could just shoot them now with their own guns and
claim a horrible accident”
“Well,” the other turned to the first, his whispering skills
were about as good as the first guard’s “It would save dragging
them all the way to his office on the 30th floor, especially as
there is no lift” They looked at each other and nodded. I got a
sick feeling in my stomach, this would be my second time I would
die in the space of 48 hours! Or was it longer than that?
Because since then I have been in the future, but then I was
nearly killed in the past as well. I gave up trying to think
about it – time travel is WAY to complicate to try to
understand! The guards reached into their pockets and drew their
(well, our) guns and pointed them at us. So, here I was, looking
down the barrel of my own gun, about to die. “We’ll fire in
three,” My heart was in my throat, “Two” I started feeling sick
again. “One” I closed my eyes and waited for the end, I heard
the shot fire but I was still breathing, I opened one of my eyes
slowly and saw that the guards were dead. I opened my other eye
straight away - “How did that happen?” I asked Kiera, who had
already started to make her way to the dead guards in search of
the keys to the chains that bound us. “Coded to our DNA, only
works for us, ringing a bell?”
“Oh, yeah”
“Moron.”
“I...” I started to protest and then gave up, it was way too
much hassle to argue and we probably didn’t have time at this
point to argue, we had a mission to accomplish! I felt something
hit my head. “Ouch!” I shouted, and looked at what had hit me. I
saw the keys, “Thanks, Kiera” I muttered, half genuinely and
half sarcastically – I wanted to be free, but I would have
preferred if the keys hadn’t lost me a few hundred brain cells.
“You’re welcome” Kiera grinned, she had clearly done this on
purpose. “You know where we have to go now, right?”
“I guess so, does it involve a 30th floor?”
“Yep”
“In that case, I know exactly where we are going – only 25
floors to go, with no stairs. I hope each floor is not like
this!”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Yeah...” I knew she would say something like that, I picked up
my pistol and wiped the blood spatters off it. The guards had
made a nice mess on the floor, so we left them there – so as not
to spread the mess any further. We stepped over the bodies and
looked for the stairs up to the next level. We saw them, and
climbed them, the next few floors were fairly easy, too easy, in
fact – we only had to kill one guy for the whole ten floors!
When we were climbing the staircase to the 16th floor, we found
out why all these floors had been so quiet. I poked my head
round the corner and instantly pulled it back when I saw what I
had not wanted to see – not one, not two but three miniguns, all
loaded and surrounded by a lot of heavily armed guards, all
pointing towards the staircase that we were going up. I looked
to Kiera, who had also seen what was round the corner. “There is
no way we are getting past there.”
“Or is there?” Kiera said in a contradictory voice.
“Let me guess, you have a plan?”
“Yep” there was a short silence
“You gonna tell me then?” I asked, I was a little agitated now,
I hated big guns. Kiera pulled out one of those glass computers
– somehow it had survived Kiera being dragged on the floor and
being shot at. She typed in a few commands and the screen went
blue and some white lines started to appear, rendering into a 3D
building blueprint, she did a few finger movements to manipulate
the blueprint and pointed about halfway up. “I had counted on
something like this – we are here, there is a hidden disused
lift shaft on this staircase that we can use to climb up, how
are you with your wire climbing skills?”
“I wish you had told me that you were counting on this!” I then
remembered the question, “Erm, my wire climbing skills are
fine.”
“Good, “ Kiera backed down the staircase and I followed – “if
this blueprint is accurate, and by the way, in the future
everything is accurate, then the entrance to the lift shaft
should be about... here” she blew some dust away from the wall
and surely enough, there was a small closed vent that they could
use. Kiera elbowed it and it opened with a horrible sound of
scraping metal – the vent cover dropped down the lift shaft and
clattered against the sides of the lift before making a massive
CRASH at the bottom of the shaft. Kiera looked sheepish. A few
seconds later we heard voices from the top of the stairs, a
flurry of voices all mixed together “What was that?” “What is
going on?” “Is there someone there?” “Let’s go check it out”.
All the bumbling voices meant one thing – they were on their way
down the stairs. I heard the sound of feet against concrete, and
looked at Kiera, she was looking back at me and our eyes both
diverted their gaze to the lift entrance. “Go!” Kiera whispered
“quickly! I will be right behind” I looked at the lift and
jumped through the small vent. I was falling, but as I did, I
managed to grab hold of one of the wires that would have been
supporting the lift and held on. Slowly I came to a halt and
started to climb up again, I looked up and saw Kiera lean in and
grab straight onto the wire, without falling and begin her
ascent. I looked at the wire and remembered my training. ‘grab
the wire with both hands above your head, pull yourself up,
anchor your legs together and repeat.’ I did this frantically
until I had just about caught up with Kiera. I guessed we had
given the guards the slip. “It seems we have given the guards
the slip” I whispered to Kiera
“Don’t say that!”
“What?”
“It is like saying ‘how hard can it be’ or something like that –
you are just tempting fate” I looked down and just as Kiera had
predicted, a guard stuck his head through the vent and looked
up. “See, I told you!” she said, clearly giving up on
whispering. The guard pulled his head back and shouted to his
colleagues “They’re in the lift shaft – shoot ‘em!” From the
walls came lots of beams of light, this was the guards, knocking
out the vents and through the vents came a lot of machine guns,
each one presumably controlled by a guard “OPEN FIRE!” one of
the guards shouted.
“LET GO!” Kiera shouted “IT IS OUR ONLY CHANCE!” My mind
instantly darted back to the CRASH the vent cover had made when
that dropped through. “NOW!” she shouted. I closed my eyes and
let go, as the machine guns began to fire.
CHAPTER 4
We were falling down the lift shaft, faster and faster. I
expected nothing but death. I felt a few machine gun shots tear
into my chest and I cried out, but my cry was completely masked
by machine gun fire. I grabbed onto the wire, trying to slow
myself down before I hit the bottom. I looked up and saw Kiera,
falling, unconscious. I grabbed her, she was bleeding worse than
me. I hit the bottom of the shaft and felt my legs give way. I
lay there on the ground, still, and it was a good job that I
did, the guards looked down and saw two bodies lying at the
bottom of the lift shaft – they must have come to the conclusion
that we could never have survived. I saw all the thin streams of
light disappear as the guards closed the vents back up and we
were left in darkness. I waited until the last vent was closed
and tried to get up. It hurt, but I managed it. Kiera was still
unconscious as I started to look through the pockets in my
combat trousers for anything that might help this desperate
situation, there was nothing. I assumed Kiera hadn’t got
anything either. She was bleeding out from her leg as well as
her arm. I had to stop the bleeding if she had any chance of
survival. I tore off the bottom of my combat trousers and tied
it as tightly as I dared around Kiera’s leg and arm. I was still
bleeding out, and the loss of blood was making me feel a little
nauseated. I struggled to concentrate. I looked at Kiera, her
bleeding seemed to have stopped but she was still unconscious. I
reached for her arm and took her pulse, thankfully it was still
there – she was still alive. I still wasn’t sure about what to
do about my shoulder and before I could look for anything to
stop the bleeding, I could feel myself passing out. I fought to
stay awake, but I couldn’t, I closed my eyes.
I didn’t know how long I was out, but I felt myself being
slapped awake “Jonny, wake up” it was Kiera, she was OK. I
started to get up and I felt my shoulder, was a bandaged up. My
legs gave way again when I tried to stand up and so I just sat
there. “Are you alright?” I asked
“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks to you”
“Yeah, well, it was nothing”
“Yeah, right.” Kiera looked at me and got out her glass computer
– still not broken! “It says that your left leg is broken and
that your shoulder usage is down to about 40%”
“Well, that’s not good” I said, looking at my leg. “How are we
going to sort it?”
“Well,” said Kiera, pulling up the blueprints “there is a
medical centre on the 25th floor...” she said, trailing off
“That won’t work, I’m not going anywhere fast!”
“Well...” Kiera said, trailing off again.
“Well, what?” I said, hoping she wasn’t thinking what I was
thinking.
“I could always go up there and get supplies while you stay
here”
“No! I wouldn’t want you going up there alone!” she was thinking
what I had thought
“You know, I have spend a fair few years in the time
association, and I have done loads of things before this,
without you, right?"
"Well, yeah, but"
"No buts, this is an unltimatum, not a conversation, plus, if I
go you still can't follow me!"
"Kiera!" but by the time I had said this, she was off. I sat
there, unable to do anything, I wasn't sure what to do, so I sat
there. I looked at my watch - 1800. Six o'clock. I wondered how
long she would be and if she would get back at all. I twiddled
my thumbs for what seemed like an eternity. I fell asleep, and
when I came to it was 2200 and she still wasn't back. I looked
around for anything that could suffice as some sort of support
for my broken leg. I saw some metal and some twisted wire to one
side. I dragged myself towards it, in pain all the time and
finally got there. I had seen what splints looked like on the
television. And I attempted to fashion one - I put the metal on
either side of my leg and used the wire to attach it. It hurt
unbelieveably - the wire was digging into my flesh but I knew
that I would have to bear it. I looked up she shaft, 25 floors,
it must have been three hundred feet! I looked at the wire,
could I climb it? More to the point, could I climb it with my
leg in this condition? I looked around for anything that could
assist my ascent. I noticed the counterbalance that would
ordinarily support the lift's weight. What if the counterbalance
was detached from the lift? I would fly up to the 25th floor! I
got out my gun and wrapped my hand round the wire. I pointed the
gun at the joint between the counterbalance and the wire and
fired. What I experienced next was a feeling of exhileration and
mortal terror. I flew upwards, as I had thought, so fast in
fact, that I nearly lost grip on the wire. I could see floor
numbers passing - 7, 8, 9... it then occured to me, I thought
how I was getting on, but not how I was supposed to get off. 14,
15, 16... they were all passing in a blur. 19, 20, 21... I would
have to let go and grab hold of something. 23, 24, 25 - this was
it, I jumped from the wire and grabbed hold of a metal beam. I
looked around, the lift had just made a crashing sound at the
bottom. Someone would be investigating that soon. I looked for
the nearest exit and spied a handy vent, a little bit away from
me. I jumped towards it and grabbed on to a beam attached to the
wall. Cool air was blowing through the vent and I appreciated
the opportunity to cool off, even for a little. I peered through
the vent. There was nobody around. I pushed the vent out of the
wall and crept through it. The splint seemed to be working, I
could now just about walk on it. I stood up. There it was, the
medical centre. It was deserted, therefore no Kiera. I decided
to sneak in, just to make sure. I walked over to the door and
tried the handle, it was locked. "If only I had one of those
fancy lock picker things!" I muttered to myself. I took a few
steps back and charged at then door, undamaged shoulder first.
It gave way easily. I toppled into the room and landed on the
floor. It all smelt like rubber. I looked around me, the walls
were all a pale blue. There was a mirror on one side and there
were cupboards everywhere, some free standing, some built into
the wall. I scrambled through the cupboards looking for anything
that could redress my shoulder and anything more permenant for
my leg. I found some rudementary dressings for my arm and set
about attaching them. I managed to fit it without too much of a
problem. I then grabbed some more, so if I found Kiera I would
be able to redress her wounds. I looked for anything that could
help my leg, but to no avail. I crept to the door and drew my
pistol, I looked at it. Up and down the barrel, and put it back
in the holster. I pulled my assault rifle out of it's holster
and deployed it. If I was going to do this, there would be no
half measures!
I stepped out of the medical centre, gun in hand and crept
around the floor, looking for the next staircase to lead me up.
Only four more floors and I would be there and hopefully I could
then find Kiera. I poked my head round the corner of the 26th
floor - there were about 5 guards. Filled with adrenaline, I
tore round the cormer and mowed them down with ease. I ran to
the next set of stairs and, without even checking first I bolted
up them and arrived at floor 27, taking another few guards down
as I did. Two more floors, nearly there! Floor 28 - more guards,
well, they are now ex-guards. And as I got to floor 29 there
were no guards at all. I had not expected this. I undeployed and
stowed my assault rifle, stealth would be more advantageous
here. I walked briskly but silently to the stairs that lead to
the 30th floor. At the top of the stairs was a large door, made
of dark wood. I looked at it, I couldn't just go in, could I?
But then, why not? I turned the handle and walked straight in.
Enigma's office was impressive, everything was neat and tidy,
with leather furniture and deep red walls. There was a coffee
table over to one side with magizines on it. I looked around for
Kiera. I saw her, she was behind bars on one side of the room, I
ran over. "Kiera! Are you alright?" I almost shouted. "Jonny,
look behind you" was her response, she was being sarcastic - she
clearly was alright! I turned round and saw him. Enigma.
CHAPTER 5
Enigma. The man who had originally tried to incinerate me in
that horrible room of death. He was tall, unnaturally tall -
about seven foot tall! His skin was as pale as paper and he was
as thin as a pole. His eyes, wilst green in colour, were
surrounded by red rings around his eyes. There was a scar down
the left hand side of his face. "Hello, Jonny" his voice was
soft, as it had been in that phone call. Soft, but still
terrifying. "I suppose you can see that your situation is
hopeless, your assistant is locked behind bars and I have the
only key. You are barely hobbling around on your broken leg, you
must see, you are doomed"
"Enigma, you know what I have to do." I don't know why I said
this - I knew what I ultimately had to do, but how was I
supposed to go about it? Enigma was right - it was hopeless! I
decided I needed to buy time. I pointed my gun at Enigma. "Are
you really going to shoot me?" Enigma asked, clearly unfased by
the gun now pointing directly in he middle of his forehead. "If
that is what it takes, then yes."
"Why have you not shot me already? Are you worried that this is
too simple?"
"IS it too simple?" I asked, trying to get a read on this
weirdo, I knew that this guy would not be operating on a skin
deep level - he seemed much too smart for that. I knew that if I
shot him then, he may have some backup to kill Kiera or worse.
"As you are clearly not going to shoot me," Enigma put up his
hand and pushed the gun out of his face and walked over to his
desk and sat down "I should explain some things - I guess you
have completely forgotten why I was trying to kill you, time
travel does that to people."
"How do you know?"
"That you underwent time travel? Simple really, I have a
connection."
"A connection?" I asked, sceptically and inquisitively.
"You think I would just tell you?" Enigma laughed, "I am about
to kill you, but I am not going to tell you everything!"
"So what are you going to tell me?"
"Well, as you may have gathered, you are a secret agent working
for the British government - your name is Jonny Lane, less than
twenty four hours ago, you foiled my plan that, had it
succeeded, would have brought me an army from the future. A gift
from my, connection." He emphasised that word, connection. Who
was this connection? Enigma picked up a silver pen off the desk
and twiddled it in his fingers. "Naturally, I had to despose of
you, so I put you in my burning room and put you out of mind -
if you had not been saved, all you would have been was a pile of
ash!"
"But I saved him!" Kiera shouted over, it was the first time she
had spoken since she drew my attention to Enigma.
"Yes, you did, so now you will both have to be disposed of. Such
a shame of talent, past and future, you could always join me,
you know?"
"Never!" Kiera and I said, almost simultaneously.
"Fine." Enigma put the pen down and stood up, he walked to the
door and pressed a button that could have only been some sort of
intercom, he only said two words but those two words filled me
with an immense amount of fear, his voice was so soft, but so
menacing. "Kill them" was all he said, and he walked out of the
room. I pulled my gun and shot three times, but he had already
gone, out of sight and out of range.
I started to re-holster my gun, and the decided against - it
looked like I was going to need it. I ran over to the bars that
were holding Kiera. I shot the lock and let her out. She was
shaking like a leaf, she looked really pale. "Are you alright?"
I asked, although I didn't need to ask - she clearly wasn't.
"No, moron! Is there anywhere we can go?"
"Erm, we could always report to my headquarters and get you
sorted."
"But what about Enigma?" Kiera was a little frantic now
"We will get him when we are in a better state! Our agency is
constantly tracking him, we will find him again. Right now we
need to get out."
"Right, give me a gun." Kiera said, completely ignoring her
ailment. I passed her the assault rifle and she deployed it. "I
have no idea how many guards there will be, but I imagine they
will be here soon." said Kiera, checking it. "It is a good job
that the assault rifles aren't coded to our DNA, isn't it!"
"Yeah, definately! Let's get some cover, I can hear the guards
coming!" We dashed behind Enigma's desk and pushed it over, we
now had a ramshakle fort that we could shoot from and it should
provide some defence for us! I heard the guards at the door, and
I raised my gun, Kiera did the same. "Let's do this!" I said,
and as I did, the guards burst in and there was a firefight,
most of their shots were missing and we were making a fair dent
in their numbers, there were dead guards lying everywhere,
bleeding out. It seemed that the guards had stopped coming. We
shot the last few guards down and looked at each other, we
slowly got up and crept around the edge of the toppled desk. Our
footsteps made no sound on the soft carpet, all red from the
blood of the dead guards. We walked towards the door, and as we
did, Kiera stopped, as of she had seen something. "What is it?"
I asked, turning around and looking at her. My question was
swiftly answered. At the door stood a guard in a defensive suit.
"That, is future tech! Kiera said, as she looked for cover
"Whoever Enigma is working with, they are from the future!"
"Well that is not good, all the stuff in the future is so much
better!" I heard a whirring sound, and a soft click, click,
click, as if something was turning. "GET DOWN, MINIGUN!!!" I hit
the carpet as bullets tore through the wall to the office and
narrowly missed my head. I fired a few shots in return, but they
were virtually ineffective against the defense robot! "What are
we gonna do?" I shouted, hoping Kiera had a plan.
"No idea!" she shouted back. My eyes darted around the room for
any other way out that was not the way I came in - the way that
was blocked by a defense machine. I noticed the tablecloth from
Enigma's desk lying on the ground. "Kiera..."
"Yes?"
"I have a plan! Grab two sides of that tablecloth!"
She scampered under the hail of bullets, still being thrown out
by the defensive machine. "Now," I said, "do as I do!" I charged
towards the window and jumped straight through it, Kiera was
barely keeping up! The glass scratched at my face and it stung,
it had had a similar effect on Kiera, we both looked like we had
been dragged through a hedge backwards! We spread the tablecloth
and, as I had planned it worked exactly like a parachute... For
about five seconds, it then ripped a massive hole in the middle,
no longer supporting us. We were falling, from the 30th floor of
a building. We would need a miracle to survive! "This is your
fault, moron!" Kiera said, I thought that that sentence would be
the last I was ever going to hear. We were falling fast,
accelerating all the time, approaching terminal velocity.
CHAPTER 6
The wind was rushing past my face, making my skin flap
everywhere. Kiera was fumbling with her time manipulator trying
to access the control panel. The buildings around us were
passing in a matter of seconds. Their windows were a blur. Kiera
had accessed her control panel and was pressing buttons rapidly.
“WHERE WILL WE BE GOING?” I shouted above the rushing air.
“ANYWHERE IS BETTER THAN BECOMING STRAWBERRY JAM ON THE GROUND
HERE, SO THAT IS WHERE WE ARE GOING – ANY TIME, ANY PLACE!”
“OK!” I figured it was easier not to question further – it would
most likely be futile.
“GRAB MY HAND! BECAUSE YOU ARE ALSO WEARING A TIME MANIPULATOR
AND YOU ARE HOLDING ON TO ME THEN WE WILL GO TO THE SAME PLACE!”
I did so, the ground was only about 150 metres away and closing,
100 metres, 50 metres, I felt the time manipulator engage and as
we were only about a metre away from the ground we jumped. I hit
the ground, but not as badly as if I had not time jumped out of
the way! My head hit mud and I lay still for a second or two. I
stood up and looked around. I had only just avoided a pile of
animal faeces! I guessed we were lucky there. Kiera stood up
too. We were in a forest. All around me there were trees, and
the morning sunlight was shining through them and you could see
the sunbeams waking up bits of the woodland – flowers caught in
their rays opened up and a beautiful multicoloured scene
surrounded us. We dusted ourselves off and Kiera got out her
glass computer thing, still unbroken – it had survived her being
dragged on the ground, knocked over, falling down a lift shaft
and now time travelling into a forest, and there was not a
single scratch on it! This was some weird computer. She started
tapping away feverishly. “We are in the year 502 AD!”
“Can we just time jump back to either 2013 or 2050 so we can get
sorted, my leg is broken and my shoulder is shot through and you
are under the weather with whatever Enigma did to you!”
“Oh no, that was just the heebie jeebies – I thought he was
going to kill you!”
“OK, well, you still got shot in the chest, so you need sorting
for that!”
“Would it shut you up if I sought medical attention for it?”
“Yes, I suppose it would.”
“Fine, mother hen!”
“What?” I asked, I knew what a mother hen was, but wasn’t sure
it applied here
“You heard!” Kiera said, walking into the forest. I ran after
her, through ferns and other plants scattering the forest floor,
I must admit it was entirely comfortable and refreshing. “So,
why are we not time jumping?” I asked
“Time manipulators need 12 hours to recharge – time travel is
not an easy thing to do, you know!”
“So, we are stuck here?”
“Yep, for the next twelve hours”
“Does your computer thing tell us where we are?” I asked, as
Kiera had got it out again.
“Erm, it says we are in a forest just outside...”
“Outside where?” I walked over to her and looked over her
shoulder at the device – on it’s glass screen it read something
I had never expected to see, we were in a forest just outside
Camelot. “Camelot? How can we be in Camelot?” I couldn’t
comprehend this. All of a sudden Kiera stuck her head bolt
upright – like a rabbit. I heard it too, the sound of hooves
against the forest floor. I looked around to where the sound may
have been coming from. The bushes all around us were rustling,
not aiding us at all. Out of nowhere a great brown horse
appeared, it was at least twice the size of me! It reared as it
stopped and the knight sitting on the horse jumped down. He drew
his sword and pointed it at my neck. “I’ve got one!” he shouted,
and other knights on horseback appeared through the bushes and
pointed their swords at us. The first knight lowered his sword
and addressed the other knights. “We have found some sorcerers!
Let us bring them to the King and he shall decide their fate!”
The knight turned back to us. “Bind them” He grabbed our hands
and bound them with rope. We were then thrown on the horses
backs and we started riding to Camelot. I wanted to see Camelot,
but not like this! All I could see was the grass and ferns
beneath me as I was knocked about on my journey to Camelot.
After miles and miles of uncomfortable trekking the forest floor
started to thin and we were riding on paved road, this was good,
because we didn’t have to worry about getting nature in our
faces. But there was one big downside. Clop clop, clop clop,
clop clop. In my ears – ALL THE TIME! It was driving me crazy!
Especially as it was ten times louder for me than any of the
knights, because I was much closer to the sound. I looked around
for Kiera, but I could not see her, everything was a horrible,
uncomfortable blur. After a few more miles of this we stopped at
what must have been a gate of some sort. I could hear a faint
conversation. “Halt, who have you got here?”
“Some sorcerer for the King to see, and if necessary, dispose
of.”
“Fine, bring them in.” I felt a jolt as the horse started
trotting again. I saw a village inside the gate, and so many
people. We were brought further in. Every building here was
magnificent, all a light grey. The walls were adorned with flags
of Camelot – A blue flag with yellow trim and on the shield in
the middle was a golden lion. We were brought into the keep and
the knights got off their horses and pulled us off too. We
walked to a big wooden set of double doors. They were about
twice the height of the tallest knight – I felt like a lemon
going to the juicer! What would Arthur do to us? The massive
dark wood doors opened into a beautifully furnished throne room,
carpeted, in a luxurious scarlet with drapes that I could only
dream of. I had often thought that Camelot would be poorly
furnished, I was wrong, everything was ornate, from the
tablecloth with a banquet on, to the ornaments on the
windowsills. Arthur was wearing armour, like the knights, but he
wore his crown – it shone beautifully, like the sun itself. Next
to him, the Queen, wearing a robe of aqua blue, and her crown.
All around them stood the court, with a two metre wide gap in
the middle. We were ushered down the middle by the knights.
There was much jeering from the court as we were brought
forward. When we had reached the front, Arthur stood up.
“Silence!” He commanded, and all fell silent in the awe of his
powerful voice. He turned to the knights that had brought us
here. “Who are these people? What are they doing in my court?”
“These people, my lord, are sorcerers – see how their chests
glow with an unholy light!”
“They do appear to be sorcerers, but how can we tell? They may
have been attacked by a sorcerer and he has cursed them! You may
have rudely abducted them for something that was not their
fault!” Arthur was a good king – he could see both sides of the
picture and wouldn’t be biased either way. He had succeeded
Uther and made a much better replacement. The knights that had
brought us here looked a little sheepish, has they abducted them
for no reason? One spoke up, “Would it be adviseable for Gaius
to look at him, for he knows how to cure sorcery – he could help
these people remove this curse they may have been put under.”
“Yes, that is acceptable” Arthur remained above the situation.
“Get Merlin to help – he is seldom useful to me, and he may be
able to assist Gaius – he might even be a replacement one day!”
“Yes Sir.” Arthur sat down again on his throne. We were ushered
out of the throne room by the knights, even though Arthur
remained impartial, the knights clearly had their own opinions.
We were jostled up several flights of stairs, the town in front
of Camelot was far below now. I almost questioned if the castle
just kept going up forever! Eventually we reached the top of a
tower and a small wooden door greeted our eyes. It was nothing
like the door that went into the throne room (which was a brown
wood and incredibly vast) this door was made of oak, there were
black metal hinges, like one might find on a farmhouse. Most of
the knights had left us now, and the one of the two remaining
knights knocked on the door.
CHAPTER 7
An old man answered the door – he dressed well, he was in better
clothes than most of the court. He wore a robe of deep green,
held on with a belt, this belt had a large brass buckle on it –
it looked very expensive. His face was a kind face, his white
hair down to his shoulders, he had a short beard, but it was
well kept, not a hair out of place. Behind the man stood a young
man – he was about nineteen, his clothes were considerably
poorer than the old man’s his clothes were falling apart. He
wore a tunic, a navy blue one, with a leather jacket – this was
clearly old and had been well used. The old man spoke with a
voice that was an old one, but sounded very mysterious, he
sounded like one of those thinkers you see in films. “Hello, Sir
Lancelot, hello Sir Galahad, what goodies do you bring me
today?”
“These two are believed to be sorcerers” Galahad replied. I
noticed the young man’s eyes widen slightly, almost
imperceivable to everybody else, I only noticed because I was
looking. This young man must be connected into magic somehow –
this must be Merlin, the young warlock that helps Arthur, if
Arthur ever found out that Merlin was a sorcerer, I dread to
think what would happen to him. I decided to keep my mouth shut.
“Well, they do seem to be wearing something connected with
sorcery – I shall have a look” Gaius said, ushering us in. “You
may tell the King that we have got it all in hand, if they are
indeed sorcerers we will bring them down to him for sentencing,
if not, then well, I am sure we can work something out.” Gaius
smiled and the knights nodded, and began their long walk down
the stairs – most likely to go and report to Arthur. We stepped
into the small room. There was a table, filled with all sorts of
vials of different sorts. There were a couple of beds to one
side, not the best, but they certainly looked comfy. There were
a few possessions here and there. There were a couple of seats
around a fireplace to one side, there were stools around the
middle table. “Sit down.” Gaius said, in his most mysterious
voice. Kiera and I obliged. We both found a wooden stool and sat
on it. “So, you are both alleged sorcerers?”
“Apparently so” Kiera responded, in a sullen voice, “We aren’t,
you know!” she said, optimistically.
“I don’t think you are” Merlin said, a little too quickly,
stepping forward as he did so. Gaius gave him a look, “because
you are not at all like the sorcerers we have captured before”
Merlin added hastily.
“Don’t worry, I know!” Kiera and I said, almost simultaneously.
“H.. How do you know?” Merlin asked, hesitantly.
“I.. um..” I didn’t want to admit that I had read about him in a
book in the future.
“We won’t tell anyone, don’t worry” Kiera added, closing the
topic. Gaius gave us all a similar look he had given Merlin.
“Make sure you don’t” Gaius said, slowly to let it sink in,
there was a small silence. “So, we know you are not sorcerers,
so tell us the truth, who are you, how did you get here and what
are those things that are glowing?”
“Shall you explain, or shall I?” I asked Kiera
“You, I am too tired to, if you go wrong (and knowing you moron,
you will) I will correct you”
“Right, thanks.” I turned to Merlin and Gaius “My name is Jonny
and this is Kiera, we are from the future – I am from the year
2013 and Kiera is from the year 2050.” Merlin laughed, Gaius
remained exactly as he was, trying to see through us “Go on,” he
said. Merlin stopped laughing
“We got here using the devices on our chests – they are time
manipulators” Merlin interrupted me
“Time manipulators? Merlin asked, “what is a time manipulator?”
“It is like a time machine” I replied “It allows us to travel
through time. We were falling off a building in the year 2013
and Kiera punched in some random coordinates on the control
panel of her time manipulator, to avoid death. The time we
travelled to was now, when we arrived, we were picked up by some
knights and brought before the king, who then sent us to you and
now we are here.”
“Yep, that covers everything” said Kiera, “except the reason why
we haven’t returned yet!”
“Oh, yes!” I said “The time manipulators take 12 hours to
recharge and we haven’t been here three hours yet, so we need to
wait another nine to be able to leave again.”
“That makes sense,” Merlin said “but, what is that metal thing
around your leg, Jonny?”
“That,” I responded “is there because I broke my leg and I
haven’t been anywhere yet to get it sorted”
“You can do something with that, can’t you Merlin” Gaius
gestured to my leg, Merlin uttered some words under his breath,
my leg glowed green for a little and then back to my normal
colour. Merlin walked over and took the wire off my leg. “Try
it” he said. I obliged, I stood up and walked on it.
“Like new! Thank you Merlin!” I was so happy to have comfortable
use of my leg back. “Can you help Kiera too? She has been shot
in several places”
“Shot, by a crossbow?”
“Well, not exactly” She said, this was most likely to stop me
revealing too many things about the future.
“I cannot help there,” Merlin said, a little dejectedly “but
Gaius can, he has some herbal remedies that should be able to
help.” Taking the hint, Gaius walked slowly (for he could only
walk slowly) to the table with the vials on. He rummaged through
the vials and picked one up, he shook it a little and it glowed
yellow. He passed it to Kiera. “Drink this” he said. Kiera
looked at it with utter disgust.
“What is it?” She asked, grimacing as she saw some, somethings,
floating in it.
“Nothing to worry about, dear lady, it is simply water with some
redintegro herbs in it, they are what give it it’s yellow
colour” Kiera still looked a little sceptical, she took out the
cork and drank it in one. She shook a little, but she was fine.
“The effect should start working in about an hour or so” Gaius
said, cheerily.
There was a knock at the door, Merlin and Gaius looked at each
other, and then at us. “Get on the chairs” Merlin whispered in a
hushed tone. We did so. Gaius started to walk slowly to the
door, but Merlin walked past and opened it before Gaius could
reach it. Stood there was a young man, who looked even younger
than Merlin, possibly seventeen. “Daniel!” Merlin almost
shouted. Instead of responding in the usual fashion that one
would expect. Daniel got out a lemon on a string from his
pocket, swung it around and hit Merlin in the face with it.
Daniel then promptly ran away. Merlin shut the door and Gaius
started chuckling “Every time” he said, whilst he was still
laughing. “He gets you every time!” Merlin’s face had gone red,
not just from where the lemon had hit him in the face, but he
was angry. He went and lay down on his bed in an apparent strop.
Gaius turned to Kiera and I and gave us a look that said ‘yeah,
he is a little angry’ we nodded in agreement. There was an
awkward silence, Gaius took a breath. “So, your machine needs
another nine hours to recharge, yes?” he said, staring at the
one on my chest.
“Yes.” Kiera said, what time is it now?” Gaius walked (slowly)
to the window and looked out. It is about 6PM, so your machines
will be ready by three tomorrow morning. The King will most
likely want to see you at sun up, so if you want to avoid having
to tell your story to him, I suggest you use your time... things
to get yourself out of here. We can find you some food for this
evening, because looking at you both, you both look, well,
sickly”
“Thank you for your hospitality” Kiera said, looking at me and
hinting for me to do something similar, I had tuned out thinking
of food. “Yes, yes, thank you” I said, trying (and failing) not
to seem rude.
“I must attend the King and tell him of my findings, MERLIN!”
Merlin looked up from his sulk. “You must come too; you are the
King’s manservant after all!” Merlin gave dagger eyes to all
three of us and got up slowly from his bed. He silently dragged
himself to the door,
#Post#: 4626--------------------------------------------------
Re: Time split I (Can't be doing with the repeats)
By: Kiera Pearson Date: November 5, 2013, 11:56 am
---------------------------------------------------------
as a monkey dragging his arms would and walked out of the door.
Gaius followed him out, closing the door behind him. Kiera and I
were left alone. “So, we have nine hours to kill” I said,
looking at Kiera.
“I know this game” Kiera said, “it is called ligretto...”
“So how do you play?”
“It is easier if I show you” She said, pulling up some applet on
her glass tablet thing, we started playing ligretto. For about
three hours we played this game called ligretto, and after the
three hours I still couldn’t quite understand it! Kiera won
every time, I barely got a look in. “You know,” she said, after
she had beaten me for what seemed like the eightieth consecutive
time “I could kill someone while playing ligretto”
“Are you going to kill me then?”
“No, not really, I was just pointing out I could” It was late
now, and the sun had set. Gaius and Merlin had just got back,
they had gone straight to bed. Kiera and I found separate spots
on the floor and lay down. The time manipulator was surprisingly
comfortable to sleep on. It must have had some sort of
comfort... thing. I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep
“Remember to be up at three in the morning!” Kiera said,
sarcastically. I groaned and tried to fall asleep.
CHAPTER 8
I woke up, being kicked repeatedly in the side. Surprise
surprise it was Kiera. “Wakey Wakey Moron!” Said Kiera in a
hushed tone, Gaius and Merlin apparently were still asleep. I
tried to roll back over and sleep, but Kiera just kept kicking
me. I had no choice but to get up. I got up. Kiera had clearly
enjoyed kicking me repeatedly and was almost a little
disappointed that I had got up when I did. “The time
manipulators have recharged, I have checked” Kiera said. I was
still half asleep and couldn’t process things properly, so I
murmured some response and looked for some sustainence. I found
an apple and ate it, slowly savouring it. Kiera started punching
numbers into the time manipulator. “Where are you taking us?” I
asked, my mouth half full.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full!” She said, I swallowed. “I am
taking us to 2013, your base, you said that they are tracking
Enigma, so that is where we shall go.”
“OK then, that makes sense” Kiera spent the next few minutes
punching numbers into her control panel. After a while she
looked up. “Do you want the space-time coordinates to enter into
your time manipulator?” She asked “Or do I have to do it for
you” she said this in the most condescending voice that was
humanly possible. “I can do it!” I said, angrily, and I heard
Gaius murmur in his sleep. Kiera hushed me. I looked at my time
manipulator and tried to get access to the keypad. I pressed a
button, roughly where the panel came out and, to my joy, it
popped out. “What are the coordinates?” I asked.
“Punch in these numbers EXACTLY” she said, stressing the exactly
a little more than was necessary. “1320310251517101062” I
muttered the numbers under my breath and showed Kiera what I had
typed in, she scrutinised it, making sure I had nothing wrong
and then nodded. I slid the control panel back into the time
manipulator and looked at Kiera. “On three” she said, “one, two,
three” I activated the time manipulator and felt my head
spinning, as it did every time I travelled in time – I hated it.
A few seconds later (but in true terms 1511 years!) my head
stopped spinning and we were standing on top of a rooftop in
London, presumably in the year 2013, Kiera was also there, so we
either both got it right or both got it wrong. The building was
right in the heart of London, everything was visible, and we
were right next to the Thames and Big Ben was next to us,
connected to the building we were standing on. I then twigged –
we were standing on top of the houses of Parliament! “Kiera.”
“Yes?”
“Do you know where we are standing?”
“Yep”
“Pray tell, why are we standing on top of the houses of
Parliament?”
“Felt like it.”
“OK” I clearly wasn’t going to get a clearer answer than that.
“How do we get down?”
“pff – talent” At which, she did a somersault off the building,
head over heels and landed gracefully on the ground below. “Your
turn!” she shouted from the bottom. I could not do that, but I
figured, I am wearing thick boots, it is only a five story drop,
and if I overshoot, I can aim for the Thames. I took a deep
breath and jumped, not knowing really what would happen. I
straightened my legs, ready to compress my legs to avoid
breaking them. Three two one, I hit the ground bent my legs and
put a fist down to make sure I didn’t fall over! This did,
however make me look impressive. “Not too shabby, Moron” she
said, I looked up and stood up, this was clearly the closest I
would ever get to a compliment from Kiera. “You are aware that,
although landing and jumping off the houses of parliament is
impressive, the base is at Euston square”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kiera was angry
“You didn’t ask! I assumed you could just find out in the
future!”
“We weren’t in the future – there was no WiFi or 5G connection!”
“5G?” I asked
“Mobile data connection, people thought 4G was fast!”
“Well,” I said, a little despondently, “It looks like we are
going to have to take the tube.”
“No way” Kiera said, putting in a dramatic pause between the two
words. I knew there was no alternative, so I started racking my
brains on how best to get to Euston Square from our current
position. “Westminster to Euston Square, either we go on the
Circle line all the way round or we go Circle or District,
change at Embankment onto the Northern Line and then walk from
Euston to the base at Euston Square – simple!”
“We can’t seriously be going on the tube, Kiera said, following
me towards the tube logo over the bridge. We walked down the
stairs and I paid for some tickets and we walked through the
barriers, Kiera’s face was a picture, seeing all the dirt on the
walls of the tube station. We jostled through all the people at
the tube station and made it to the Circle/District line
platform. “So, which way would you prefer to go?” I asked Kiera
“The Circle/District line change at Embankment will probably be
quicker”
“Whatever, Moron, just whatever gets us there faster” Kiera, I
expect, was now regretting landing on the houses of Parliament.
The electronic display board (now seeming like really old tech
now I had seen future tech) said the next train was a circle
line, due in one minute’s time. We waited on the platform in
silence. “So, why do you not like the tube?” I asked
“I don’t not like it!” she said, trying to pretend that she did
like the tube.
“You CLEARLY don’t like it, I just want to know why!” Kiera
sighed, and her face became downcast. In the future we have a
monorail that runs above the city, sure it interferes with the
flying cars, but it is good and clean!”
“So, the problem is the lack of cleanliness?” I asked, intrigued
by the response
“No, Moron!” she said “I just don’t like the sound of rushing
wind in the dark?”
“What is wrong with that?” I asked, desperate for an answer
“Just drop it OK!” I did, I had clearly pushed her too hard. The
tube train arrived; there were seats so we took them. The mood
was frosty. “Have you got means of getting into the base once
we’re there?” Kiera asked. “Well, I don’t have my badge or key
card, but hopefully they will recognise me!”
“Really? That is your plan?”
“What is wrong with it?”
“It was thought up by you, that is what!”
“Thanks, I am sure it will work! I was ‘employee of the month’
three months running!”
“Yeah, that infinitely doubles our chance of success.”
“Look, I am sorry. I won’t ask again!”
“Good, make sure you don’t” I looked over at someone’s copy of
the Metro and thought of myself, travelling alone, with a copy
of the Metro. Even as an adult I would always flick to the back
and read the comics first! I heard the tannoy speaking – ‘The
next stop is EMBANKMENT’. I turned to Kiera, who had seemed to
have perked up now I had apologised. “This is our stop, come on”
“I know, I know!” she said, but in a more jokey manner. We
stepped off the train, minding the gap, as the tannoy had
reminded us to do! I walked ahead and Kiera followed, while she
knew her way about the future, The Past was my era and I knew
where everything was! We walked through Embankment’s compressed
station, through the winding pillars, and ended up (after going
up and down an almost infinite amount of stairs) on the Northern
line platform, waiting for the next stop. “The reason I don’t
like the tube is the fact it is underground – nothing in the
future is underground! It is all over ground! I need to be over
ground – I don’t like being underground!”
“Why?”
“I think it may collapse in on us!”
“OK, well, the tube has been here for so long, I am sure it will
be fine!” The tube train pulled up. We got on, and the train
pulled away. We went through the various stations on the
Northern line – Charing Cross, Leister Square, Tottenham Court
Road. When the train was departing Tottenham Court Road, Kiera
and I had almost fallen asleep. Then we heard, not the
computerised voice of the tannoy, but the voice of the driver.
“Jonny and Kiera, you still seem to be following me!” I knew
that voice – it was the voice of Enigma, he must have taken over
the train somehow, or broadcasting his voice via a different
location. Enigma continued talking – “I need to dispose of you,
you two are becoming far too much of a hindrance! Ideally I
would have liked to kill you in person, but who has the time?
So, goodbye!” I heard a loud bang and sparks flew up as the
train stopped. I then heard a second, louder, ka-boom! And the
ceiling started to cave in, and the carriage was surrounded by
bits of wreckage from the broken tube train. We were trapped.
Kiera’s face had gone completely pale. “How... how do we get
out?”
“At present, no idea.”
“Great.”
CHAPTER 9
We were stranded in the tube, surrounded by rubble, stuck, no
foreseeable sign of rescue. Kiera was a little frantic, to say
the least, especially now I knew that she disliked the tube! I
couldn’t see how we were to get ourselves out. And everyone else
in the carriage! I punched the wall in frustration. And as I
did, I noticed something in my arm – a little microchip. I
looked closely at my arm to try and get a better look at it. It
clearly wasn’t future tech, it looked like it had been there for
a while. Somehow, Enigma or one of his goons had implanted it
into me and that is how they tracked me to be able to destroy
the tube! It was all my fault. I reached into my pocket to find
something that I could use to take it out. I found my knife and
popped the chip out. I placed it on the floor and was about to
crush it when I stopped. My foot hovered about an inch above the
chip, poised to destroy it. But I moved my foot away. Kiera
walked over “What are you doing? What is that?”
“It looks like a GPS transmitter, I assume it was implanted my
Enigma”
“Why have you not destroyed it yet?”
“I think, if I change the frequency, I should be able to turn it
into a distress signal that someone at base could pick up. It is
worth a try!”
“Fine, just do it, and quickly”
“OK,” I used my knife to open the chip housing. There was a
screw in the middle, for adjusting frequency, It was currently
pointed at 148MHz, “The base frequency was... umm...” I racked
my brains, trying to think of the frequency! “Was... 678MHz!” I
used my knife as a screwdriver to turn the dial and attached the
chip to the ceiling to give it the best chance. Kiera was still
unsettled. “Have you got that Ligretto game on you?” I asked, in
a vague attempt to calm her down.
“Yeah,” she pulled out her glass computer and set it down on the
floor. The game booted and we started playing, she was winning
hands down (again!). Something was not right in the carriage, I
noticed one of the people standing around go for the microchip,
he grabbed it and threw it on the floor – it was still intact
and the man raised his leg to smash the thing. Kiera whipped out
her pistol and shot the man in the head, before he could destroy
it. “Told you I could kill someone while playing Ligretto didn’t
I?”
“Yeah, you did!” I said, a little shocked. I picked up the chip
and put it back on the ceiling. By the time I sat down again,
she had won the game. “How do you do that?” I asked, and as I
did, I heard a drilling noise from above. It was a drill! I
pulled out my pistol to shoot if necessary, but I was able to
holster it again when I saw the face of Doug, one of the
operatives in my agency. “Jonny? What are you doing here?” I
tried to think of something witty to say, but nothing came. “I
umm... Actually, could you just get us out and take us to base –
it is that or the bus!”
“Sure thing Jonny, come over here and we’ll winch you up” Kiera
looked at me
“Let Kiera go up first!” I said, knowing that she desperately
wanted to get out
“Who is she?” Doug asked
“Long story, just winch her up Doug, I can go after her” Kiera
got up and walked to where Doug was hanging, and got attached to
a winch. She was winched up and a few minutes later I was
winched up too. We were piled into a car and we started going
towards Euston Square base. We pulled into the car park of what
looked like an ordinary office building and went inside, this
was base. There were computers, bits of paper and charts
everywhere, it was nowhere near as tidy as the Time Association
building in the future. It felt nice to be back though. The
papers and mess made the whole place feel homely. My flat was
about this level of untidiness. My boss – Rick looked up from a
computer and came to meet us. “Jonny! It is good to see you!
Alive that is, we thought you were dead!”
“Well, I nearly was!”
“That was a good job you used that GPS chip, you still are our
most resourceful agent!
“Thank you, Sir”
“Who is this with you?” The boss was looking at Kiera
“I am Kiera, I am from the future” Rick fainted, I looked at his
limp body on the ground. “And the answer to your question is,
yes that happens a lot!” Kiera said as she grabbed Rick’s legs,
I grabbed his arms and together we carried him to his office and
left him to wake up. “Can you please not do that to every person
we encounter?” I asked Kiera
“I shall try to restrain myself” She said. In my best Yoda
impression I turned to her
“Do, or do not, there is no try.”
“OK, I shall see what I can do!” This marked the end of the
conversation. “So, where is the department where they are
tracking Enigma?”
“That would be the tracking department upstairs”
“I like this base, so many logical place names!” We walked
towards the lift at the back of the base and were about to get
in when we looked at each other and we then both walked towards
the stairs. Apparently, we both were now sick of lifts! We
walked up two flights of stairs and stepped onto floor two – the
tracking department. As soon as we stepped onto the floor I saw
a hand waving to us, Kiera and I walked over to this mystery
hand to find out who was on the other end. It was Gary; he spoke
to us “Jonny! How are you? We have been tracking Enigma
throughout all this time, he doesn’t stay still much!”
“I’m alright, thanks, so where is he now?” I asked, not trying
to hurry him too much, but we did have an evil villain to
capture! Kiera looked at the screen, “It seems that Enigma is
stationary on the volcanic island of Tombo!”
“That sounds like a made up island!” I said, “Do you need
glasses?”
“No, that is what it is called” she turned the monitor to me
“See, Tombo island.”
“OK, let’s go there then”
“This has definitely been a whistle stop tour of the base hasn’t
it Jonny!” Gary said, looking almost a little saddened. “Well,
evil never rests so neither should we!” I said, and we left him.
We walked back down the several flights of stairs and reached
the ground floor. I turned to Kiera, “It may not be sensible to
go on public transportation. We should nip down to R and D to
see if we can borrow anything useful”
“Yeah, it is nowhere near as good as our future tech, but I
daresay some of your old tech would get us from A to B faster
than walking!”
“To the basement!” I almost shouted, drawing quite a crowd!
Kiera shoved me down the stairs. I nearly fell over but I saved
myself at the last moment. We continued walking down the stairs
and it got darker and darker as we went further and further
down. We could see a small light at the bottom of the stairs and
made for it. “That must be R and D” Kiera said, pointing towards
the light.
“Yeah, you will see why there are all the steps in a minute” I
said, knowing what we were about to see. We made it to the light
and walked through the door. We saw the military size hanger
that was the R and D department. It was incredibly vast, unlike
the stairs that led down to it, it was brightly lit, as if the
sun was shining inside. The walls were a matt silver, not that
it reflected, it was the colour. Inside there were planes,
helicopters, cars, boats and many other strange machines and
gadgets. A man walked up to us, “What can I do for you two
then?” Kiera chose to speak –
“We need a vehicle that will get us from here to the volcanic
island of Tombo”
“Well, that is across land and across water...” The man said,
thinking of a suitable vehicle. He started murmuring as he
thought. “Helicopter or plane will not be discreet enough, car
will not get across water...” this continued for the next few
minutes, thinking of vehicles and then why it wouldn’t work.
After 5 minutes or so the man looked up. “I have just the thing!
Follow me.” He led us around this massive hanger and we saw lots
of machines and vehicles, but the man just walked past them.
“Who is this man?” Kiera whispered discreetly into my ear. “No
idea!” I replied “He must be new, or I have forgotten!” Kiera
sighed. “Useless!” she said, still in her hushed tone. The man
gestured us to stop, and he walked over to some large object
with a cover on it. He pulled the cover off and there before us
was a car. It was just a car, nothing particularly interesting
about it. It was an old Ford Thunderbird. There appeared to be
nothing special about it. The man gestured for me to come and
sit in the driver’s seat. I did so. I got in. The car was
pristine, even though it was a really old car, it seemed brand
new! The wood was all varnished and it smelt amazing. The
controls seemed similar to that of a usual car, with one
alteration. There was a red button on the dashboard, it was not
clear what it did. Kiera walked over to the little car and sat
in the passenger’s seat. We closed both doors. It was a lovely
car. I had always wanted to own one, but never got round to
getting one. The man gestured for me to roll the window down. I
reached for the handle and rolled the window down. “Here are
your keys,” he dropped a single key with a ‘You don’t have to be
mad to work here but it helps’ key ring attached. “What is the
red button?” Kiera asked
“The red button,” he replied “well, you’ll find out when you
drive off the white cliffs of Dover on your way to Tombo
island.”
“Wait, why am I driving off a cliff?” I asked, panicking
slightly because I did not want to be driving off a cliff in the
foreseeable future! “Don’t worry; the red button will sort that”
“What does it do? Make it fly?” I asked, “Flying cars have not
been invented yet!”
“Not yet, no, but this is better.” Before I could say anything
else, Kiera interrupted –
“Thank you, now, how do we drive out of here?”
“There is a ramp over there, just drive on to it and it will
raise” The man showed a corner where there was yellow and black
hazard tape surrounding it. “Thanks again.” I said, as I turned
the key in the ignition. The engine rumbled into life, sounding
amazing as it did. I put the car into gear and drove forward
towards the yellow and black tape. I parked in the designated
box and waiting for further instructions. “TURN THE ENGINE OFF!”
I heard the man shout. I turned the engine off and waited, and
waited. Some poles rose round the side of the platform, and
flashing yellow lights flashed. The platform started to lift up
towards the ceiling and I wondered if we would be punched
through the ceiling on to a random London street. The lift
stopped and we saw what looked like a bog standard garage door.
This then rose and I started the car and drove through. The
tunnel then joined the ramp that we had originally driven in on.
We joined the London street in the normal fashion – towards
Canterbury and then to Dover.
CHAPTER 10
The journey was about eighty miles (give or take a bit). It was
mostly motorways but there was a lot of traffic. This was the
slowest journey we had undertaken on the whole trip. We had made
it to Canterbury, we drove past the cathedral and left
Canterbury behind. We arrived in Dover. The road started to thin
as we reached the coast. Instead of jumping off the white cliffs
of Dover, Kiera and I decided we would drive off one of the
longer piers. The next half an hour or so was made up of
conversations like – “How about that one?” “Nah, not long
enough” or “Can’t drive the car onto it”. Eventually we drove
next to a pier that was perfect – and closed to the public. I
turned to Kiera “Got your lock picker thing?”
“Of course, you expect me to leave without it?”
“Not really, I was just suggesting that this would be a good
time to use it?”
“Yes, it would.”
“Can I use it?”
“What you are saying, is that you want to use, well play with,
my lock picker?”
“I WANT TO MELT THE GATE!”
“No, I am going to melt the gate!” and with that she got out of
the car and walked towards the gate. She pulled out her lock
picking device and used it – the wire gate did not stand a
chance! The whole thing melted in a matter of seconds. Kiera
walked back to the car and blew the smoke off the lock picker.
“Are you trying to rub it in?” I asked, a little bit annoyed
“Yes,” she said, “and it is working!” She put her seatbelt on.
We drove through, surprisingly, no one seemed to care. We drove
down the pier and then we realised why there was a gate. The
pier was bumpy and a lot of the planks were rotten, making the
whole thing dodgy. I am sure that several planks dropped through
while we were driving on it. “Are you sure this is safe?” Kiera
asked me, as I was clutching the steering wheel “Nope!” I said,
and this was the truth. Somehow we reached the end of the two
mile long pier and stopped. “So do you think that I should press
the button before or after we go in?” I asked
“Shall we try before?” She said
“OK,” I pressed the button. From the sides of this little Ford
Thunderbird came what looked like wings, but they were only
about half a metre long – we couldn’t possibly fly using them. I
heard a scratching sound as something apparently came from the
back, pushing us into the water. The windows closed
automatically. We were going into the water. As we touched the
water, a new dashboard rose up from the rest of the dashboard.
It was an depth meter and a location. “Wait, this is a
submarine!”
“Apparently so!” Kiera said, in a semi-sarcastic tone, she was a
little shocked though so the sarcasm went a bit to pot. The
steering wheel could now be moved forward and backward to change
depth as well as steering left and right. Not seeing any other
way of making the car go, I pressed down on the accelerator
pedal. And the speed increased, showing the speed in knots
instead of miles per hour. I didn’t know how fast speeds were in
knots, but I assumed 85 knots was good. The map showed our
current location and where Tombo Island was, there was a course
plotted into the map and I switched the system on to autopilot.
It was dark underwater and I almost lost the time of day. I
looked at my watch. The time was 2200. I looked over at Kiera,
she was fast asleep. She must have been tired; she had barely
rested in 2013. I daresay it was not at all like 2050. I made
sure the autopilot was on and set it to wake me up if something
happened. I turned the lights on the dashboard off and I drifted
off to sleep. I slept surprisingly well considering we were
going 85 knots underwater. I woke up at about 0630, Kiera was
still asleep, and I was hungry. I looked in the bag I took with
me, and it was empty. I looked in the back of the car and joy of
joys there was a box of cornflakes and two bowls, there was also
a pint of UHT milk. I didn’t even remember putting that in! I
looked all over the dashboard for something to support a bowl.
“If only there was a cup holder, that would do the trick.”
“Cup holder activated” said an electronic voice from the
dashboard. With a small hissing some cup holders emerged from
the dash. I put one bowl in each and poured the cornflakes, I
put some UHT on one because I didn’t want to put milk on the
other and it to become soggy. I looked for a spoon and ate my
breakfast. The milk was lukewarm but it was good. I wolfed it
down, like a wolf. I put the bowl in the back and looked over to
Kiera. It was 0700 and she was still asleep. I needed to wake
her up, we were nearing the Island, but, knowing what she is
like, if I woke her up she might kill me. I decided to wake her
up, but without me being in immediate proximity. I used my phone
to open an alarm app, and leaning against the window I set it
off. Nothing, Kiera was still asleep. I prodded her, nothing.
This was not going to be easy. I decided to try to disarm her
before I proceeded any further. I reached firstly for her pistol
holster and tried to remove the gun. The second I had touched
it, Kiera woke and was pointing the gun in my face. “JONNY!” she
shouted
“Yes?”
“What are you doing?” she said, calming down a little
“I was trying to wake you up, it is 0700 and we are approaching
the Island”
“Well, you have succeeded!” she said, a little agitated. I don’t
think she was a morning person.
“Right, would you like some cornflakes?” I asked, pointing to
the bowl that I had set up
“Yes, please” I poured the UHT on and passed her a spoon. She
ate it even more quickly that I had! “Thank you” she said once
she had finished.
“That’s alright” I replied and I put the bowl in the back. The
screen flashed up with a warning, two miles to the island. I
turned off autopilot and took manual control. “Can you look on
the map for a suitable parking spot?” I asked, Kiera looked at
the map on the screen and zoomed in and out for a good spot,
panning the map here and there to find a good place. “There is a
cavern on this side of the island that you could ‘park’ in”
“Yep, that’d do it.”
“Change your bearing by 5 degrees and slow to 4 knots.” I
adjusted the throttle and turned the steering wheel. The car
changed direction and slowed. I pulled the steering wheel
towards me. The nose of the car began to rise towards the
surface. The water got lighter and lighter as we got closer and
closer to the surface. We reached the surface and glided out of
the water onto the sand on the island. I drove the car into the
cavern Kiera had suggested. It was a tight fit, but a fit
nonetheless. There was just enough room to get out either side.
We did so and left the car in the cave. I was glad I had ripped
my trousers to knee level – it was sweltering heat, and shorts
were definitely necessary! Kiera just rolled up her trousers to
knee level. The black T-shirts were a bit annoying in this heat,
but it was bearable. We drew our pistols and walked up the side
of the island. There was a beach around the whole island and a
volcano in the middle, Enigma’s base here reached around the
volcano, and also formed part of the volcano. Separating the
volcano from the beach was a dense jungle as one might expect.
We walked around the whole of the island (a journey only about
two miles long) searching for the least dense bit of jungle
and/or the best way to get into Enigma’s base. So far we had
seen no security cameras or otherwise, luck must have been on
our side. I turned to Kiera once we had travelled the whole of
the island. “Where do you think the best entry point is?”
“I think the point with the tall tree, we could climb it and use
the vines attached to it to swing into the base.”
“Dangerous, but doable”
“Had you got any better suggestions?”
“Not really, the front door approach didn’t do very well last
time. Unless…” I trailed off, thinking
“Unless, what?”
“Unless, we climb the volcano and go in through the top”
“That is a surprisingly good idea – let’s do it!” Kiera said,
she was clearly hyped for this. I looked up at the volcano.
“There is a point over there where the base doesn’t hug the
volcano, giving us a gap to get through to reach the summit. I
am sure the volcano is extinct by now!” We started walking
towards the jungle.
CHAPTER 11
The jungle was dense, everything twisting around and over
everything. All the plants and trees were competing for the
little sunlight at the top. It was a hard trek, over logs and
through undergrowth. It was not pleasant. There were bugs and
creatures everywhere. There were flies everywhere. We were
sweating a lot, due to the intense heat. My t-shirt was clinging
to my body. Never had I wanted anything to end more! I tripped
over a log and fell to my knees. Kiera was much further ahead,
taking this in her stride, sweating still, but not struggling as
much as I was. She came back to help me as I was still
struggling. She helped me onto one of the higher tree trunks.
“Do as I do” she said, and ran along the trunk and jumped to
another. I followed what she did and it was remarkably easy. I
noticed the art to it. Always look for a route on higher
objects, make sure there is always something to go to, if there
are two routes that are similarly close to each other, then that
is a good backup. I picked this up fairly quickly, and soon I
was running alongside Kiera. The journey was only a mile or so
long, but at this speed it was nothing. We reached the other
side of the jungle scratch free. The volcano stood before us.
This was the tallest thing on the island and we had decided to
climb it. I touched the rocky surface. It was not warm, this was
good. It pointed that the volcano was most likely extinct and
that it wasn’t going to burn out hands whenever we gripped it. I
reached up for one of the rocks and tested it. It didn’t give
way, so I used it to climb on. Kiera had decided to follow me
for this. I would test the rocks and keep pressing on and she
would follow behind me on the same route. I reached for one rock
and another. We were already about ten metres up, and had got
past the tops of most of the trees. It had not occurred to us
that we should have brought water with us for our trek through
the forest and up the volcano, and so therefore we did not have
any. The sun had gone behind a cloud, a grey, stormy cloud. It
looked like it was about to rain. I looked down to where Kiera
was “It looks like it is going to rain!”
“I think so too, let’s try to cover as much ground as possible
before it does, when it rains the rocks will get slippery.” We
stepped up the pace. Enigma’s base was about 50 metres up the
mountain, and the whole mountain was about 100 metres high. I
kept climbing and when we reached about 30 metres the heavens
opened and the rain fell. It fell with force, hurting every time
it hit my hand. It did have one advantage though; at least the
people at the window of Enigma’s base wouldn’t be able to see
us. We kept climbing and as we reached the point where we could
go pass behind the bit of Enigma’s base that was not touching
the mountain my hand slipped. I managed to hold on. I re-gripped
on the rock and this time it held, but it shook me. “Are you
OK?” Kiera asked
“Yeah, just about, make sure you are careful – these rocks are
getting really slippery!” We neared the passing point. The base
was a silvery colour, shiny, hurting my eyes, even though it was
raining, the sun was reflecting off it and into my eyes. There
was a hatch on the side of the base labelled emergency exit. I
looked down to Kiera “There is an emergency exit here that we
could use to get in, shall we use it?”
“It is better than potentially slipping and falling to our
deaths on this!” I assumed this meant, go on, use it! I reached
for the handle and turned it. The door opened and I got inside,
we were in some sort of storeroom, it was completely empty. A
few seconds later Kiera joined me. I wrung out the bottom of my
t-shirt to try and dry it, to no avail. It was sodden. “Pistols
or assault rifles?” I asked, looking at Kiera. “Assault rifles”
she said “we have no idea how many guards there will be!”
“Good plan” I said. I got out my rifle and deployed it. I walked
to the door, it was locked. “The door is locked, can I
pleeeeeeeeeeaaase use your lock picker to destroy it?” I asked
Kiera, in my most pleading voice. “Fine. Just this once, if it
will shut you up!”
“Thank you” I smiled, Kiera passed me the lock picker
“Press the red button when ready.” I inserted the end of the
lock and pressed the red button. The door melted completely in a
pile of molten metal. I passed the lock picker back to Kiera.
“That was so much fun! Can I do it again?”
“Maybe, don’t get excited though” I took this as a possibility.
I poked my head round the door. From what I could see, the base
was a single floor with fairly high ceilings. There were about
twenty guards on this floor, somehow they had not noticed the
door melt in front of them. I stuck my head back into the room
“There are about twenty guards, do you reckon that will be OK?”
“No problem, child’s play!”
“Ready then?”
“Let’s go” Kiera said, readying her gun. We burst out of the
room and opened fire on the guards, we took them down one by
one. Apparently other guards heard the commotion and joined the
firefight. They didn’t get far, we shot them all down. As the
last guards fell. My assault rifle ran out of charge. Somehow I
had fired 500 shots! Either there were more guards than I had
anticipated, or I was really inaccurate. I looked up for a rough
body count. I then realised why I had fired so many shots, while
there were only about 50 guards, some had been shot twice, but
the broken windows and wrecked furniture explained where the
other laser shots went.
“Ten for collateral damage, Moron!” Kiera said, gesturing to the
damage
“Some of that must have been you!”
“Not really” I gave up at this point, I could argue, but we had
bigger fish to fry! I looked around for a door to get to
Enigma’s office; none of them seemed to help. I ran around the
whole of this doughnut shaped base looking for a door. On the
inner side of the base there was a door. This door was simple,
wooden and varnished. There was a plaque on it, it read:
‘Enigma’s office, please use the handle and try not to urinate
on the floor.’ I called to Kiera. “Kiera, I think this is the
place”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Get in there, I will catch up!”
I turned the handle and walked in. The room I entered was not
the traditional office I was expecting. The whole room was
suspended above lava, it was an impressive room, albeit a
dangerous one. The whole room was made of glass (It must have
been heat resistant), Enigma was standing there. I raised my
rifle, it must have been a minute since I used it. I pointed it
at him. “It is the end of the road Enigma! We have blocked off
your only exit!” Kiera joined me at this point.
“So you have, I guess I have no choice now but to activate this”
He pressed a button on the remote in his hand, the remote
started to light up. It started to light up in bands, like a
thermometer might. I assumed if it reached the top the signal
would be transmitted. I took aim with my rifle and fired a
single short that destroyed Enigma’s control and took his hand
with it. He cried out in pain. All was left was the top of his
arm, that was all. It had also hit the side of his body. Kiera
and I ran over as Enigma dropped to the floor, he was wounded,
but he was going to survive. “What was that you were
activating?” I shouted at him.
“His weapon” Enigma said, between squeals of pain
“Whose weapon?” Kiera asked “REFERENCE YOUR PRONOUNS!”
“I’ll never tell!” Enigma said, gritting his teeth through the
pain of a missing side.
“Fine.” Kiera said. She pointed her gun at a random point on the
floor and fired. The patch of floor melted away to leave a hole
about a metre wide. She grabbed Enigma’s leg and dangled him
above it. “TELL US!” She shouted, even I was a little afraid.
“NO!” Enigma shouted. Kiera dropped him a little further, so he
was further through the hole.
“TELL US, OR I DROP YOU!”
“HIS NAME IS… TONITRUA”
“Tonitrua?” Kiera said, as she dropped Enigma through the hole
“Interesting” I heard a small fizzle as I heard Enigma hit the
lava and melt. “Who is Tonitrua?” I asked
“Captain Tonitrua is a space pirate from the future, and
apparently he has acquired time technology and worked with
Enigma until you stopped him.”
“Right, let’s get out of here, you can explain further later.”
CHAPTER 12
We left the base (now almost completely destroyed) the way we
went in. Enigma was defeated and now we had to be concerned with
some random guy called Captain Tonitrua, who was presumably some
guy in the future. We climbed down the volcano and walked
through the jungle. We reached the beach and Kiera got out her
control panel for the time manipulator. She punched in some
coordinates. “OK, you need to type in 5020050251517101061” I got
out my control panel and started to type in those numbers.
“These ones aren’t going to make us end up on the roof of the
Houses of Parliament, right?”
“No, no, of course not!”
“OK, I am trusting you!”
“That is brave of you!”
“Yeah, ready to activate?”
“No, but oh well!” Kiera said with a slightly manic grin, “Ready
for a briefing on Captain Tonitrua?”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” I pressed the
activation button on my time manipulator and I could see Kiera
doing the same. We both dissapeared in a blue flash, we were
back in the future. We landed, not on the Houses of Parliament,
but on the Time Association building roof. This was a relief, I
don’t think I could have coped with another Houses of Parliament
incident! The Boss was standing there. “Welcome back” he said,
in his Brian Blessed voice. “You two look a little battered!”
“Yeah, that would cut it” Kiera said, looking around at the
people around her. I looked around, the people there were the
same people that saw us off, it was the same time of day. It was
apparently just a few seconds after we had left. Almost no time
had passed since we had left. I was going to be really
jet-lagged, I could tell. Health monitors were strapped to Kiera
and I and we were taken down to the medical bay for checking. I
tried to resist, but gave up – I was too tired. I was put in a
medical bed and I fell asleep, a fair amount of time had passed
by the time I woke up. It was 7AM the following morning. There
were probes attached to my body and I could see an ECG machine
to my right. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for leaving so
I just took the probes off and walked downstairs to get some
breakfast. Kiera was already there. “How did you get here so
early?” I asked.
“I didn’t fall asleep!” she said, “the procedure only took about
twenty minutes, then I was allowed to leave. I went upstairs,
sat in my room and read”
“Wow, I feel so unproductive” I said, in a bit of a deadpan
voice.
“The briefing on Captain Tonitrua starts at two, so you can take
a leisurely start.”
“I think I will” I said, as I walked over to the ‘not quite
porridge but very similar to porridge machine’ and dispensed
some breakfast. I took it to the table Kiera was sitting at and
started to eat it, “What is this stuff anyway?”
“Honestly?” she said, grinning a little
“Yes…” I was now a little nervous about what this stuff could
actually be
“Honestly, I have no idea!”
“I was not expecting that”
“Have you been able to expect anything?”
“Nope”
“There you are then” I continued eating my breakfast and almost
didn’t care that I had no idea as to what it was. I then looked
over at Kiera, “So, what are you going to do to fill your time
before the meeting?”
“I have things to do, but if you are stuck for things to do, I
recommend honeing your ligretto skills. If you go down to see
Smart then you can obtain one of the glass computers and
download the app onto that. Also, since you have completed your
first mission without dying then he may give you some gadgets”
“Gadgets?” I asked, a little sceptically “What gadgets?”
“Gadgety Gadgets”
“That is not particularly helpful”
“I know, you will find out when you get there, he always gives
different gadgets to different people, depending on how he
feels”
“Right, do you know when the lab opens?”
“Yeah, drop in any time after nine, then there should be someone
there.”
“Thanks”
“That’s OK” Kiera got up, “See you at the meeting”
“Yeah, see you later” Kiera left, and I finished my ‘not
porridge but suspisciously like porridge’ and went up to my room
for a shower. I was provided with a new kit, trousers, no longer
ripped off at the bottom and worn holes, My black t-shirt was
clean. I wondered how many t-shirts and pairs of combat trousers
the Time Association must get through. It was five to nine, and
so I decided to go downstairs and visit Smart. I took the lift
down to the basement as I had yesterday and I arrived at Smart’s
lab. I entered and looked around. “Smart?”
“Hello Commander Lane! You survived your first mission I see!”
“Yes, yes I did”
“Good, so, what are you doing here?”
“Kiera said that I should come down here to get some gadgets”
“Why did she say that?”
“I don’t know really” I didn’t think that it would be this
tricky to get some gadgets!
“Well, had you got anything in mind?”
“Not really, Kiera had a lock picking gadget that looked kinda
cool, but I don’t know what else you have really.”
“Well, I can provide you with a lock picker!” Smart waddled over
to a drawer on one of the massive walls and came back with a
lock picking gadget that looked almost identical to Kiera’s,
Kiera’s was just a little bit more battered. “Here you are” he
said, giving it to me “anything else?” Smart asked. “Well,
nothing particularly specific, but if there is some other cool
stuff it would be greatly appreciated” I replied, hoping Smart
would give me a gadget that would be fun to use.
“Well, I do have something fresh out of development, if you
would like to take a look”
“I would love to!” I said, grinning slightly – I probably looked
a little psychotic. Smart waddled over to a cabinet on one side
of the room and I followed, curious to find out what this new
invention was. He pulled open the cabinet and showed me what
looked like a button on a sphere, about the size of an apple. I
looked at it; I was a little disappointed – what good was a
button on an apple sized sphere? Smart could see my
disappointment. “Step back” he said, raising the sphere above
his head in a dramatic fashion. He pressed the button and he
became invisible and then turned into a large cabinet. He then
reappeared. “What was that?” I asked, dumbfounded, this was
completely weird but seriously cool! “It is a sort of
invisibility device, but so much better, you see, if it were
just to make you invisible then people could still bump into you
and discover you, Thus, I created this, it makes you immediately
invisible to protect you (and potentially a friend) but then it
scans the surroundings to find an object that is supposed to be
there and therefore the people will not suspect that you are
there, they just see the object. You see, when I was in here it
turned me into a locked cabinet, people can touch it and not be
suspicious. You see the usefulness of it, in a forest it may
turn you into a tree or a large rock. The possibilities are
endless.” He took a breath to keep talking, but I interrupted
him before he could see anything else, I see why Kiera did not
allow him to explain about the alloy in the time manipulator –
we would have been there for hours! “So, are you going to issue
one of these to Kiera as well?”
“No, I shouldn’t need to, one device should cover two people”
“Thanks, Smart”
“It’s a pleasure to help” Smart said, beaming in his slightly
creepy manner. I nodded and left the lab, bringing the
invisibility thing. “Does it have a name?” I asked, before the
lift door closed
“No, maybe you could come up with a name for it!”
“I shall!” I said, as the lift doors closed. I decided to go up
to the meeting room ready for the meeting. I took the lift up
and walked into the conference room.
CHAPTER 13
The conference room was already occupied, Kiera, the Boss and
other official looking people were there. I was only about 5
minutes early. Everyone in there seemed to have cups of tea or
coffee and were taking about something or other. They stopped
when I came in. There was a whiteboard to one side of this
conference room. The walls were a pale blue and the carpet was a
dark blue, there was a window with a city view across from me.
The Boss stood up. “Commander, you are early”
“I am aware of that, sir”
“Good, well, help yourself to tea and biscuits, the meeting
starts at two.”
“Thanks, I am not thirsty” I walked over and sat next to Kiera.
“Tea and biscuits?” I asked, with a slightly confused look on my
face. “Yeah, it’s a thing” Kiera said, finishing a custard
cream. “We get given tea and biscuits in between meetings”
“OK” I sat and twiddled my thumbs for a bit, “What was the last
meeting about?”
“Not much,” Keira said, clearly not giving me any more
information. Time passed and soon it was 1400. The Boss stood
up. “Silence please, the meeting is about to start, this meeting
concerns Captain Tonitrua, if anyone was meant to be attending
the meeting about how to make big ideas float then you need to
be in the other conference room, anyone?” A small scrawny man
got up and slipped out of the room. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Captain Tonitrua, is a space pirate.” The Boss said, gesturing
to a screen behind him, he started to go into details of when
the Time Association first encountered him and his wrongdoings.
I just looked at the picture of this man, if you could call him
that – he barely looked like a man. His face was a dark grey and
scarred. His hair was a dark brown, in fact, most of him was
dark. He wore a long navy blue jacket that looked ex-military
and a large belt kept that closed making it impossible to see
what was underneath. He wore a triangular shaped hat that was
pointed up at the front, this was also falling apart. I stared
at this guy, he was repulsive. I briefly tuned in again as the
slide changed. “The pirate’s ship is called the Arkanon, it is a
traditional looking pirate ship, completely unalike a regular
pirate ship once you take away from appearance – although it has
sails, it is powered by several proton engines that can usually
make the thing run at 100mph It is equipped with many laser
cannons that could rip through the hull of a capital ship as if
it were tin foil. It has a wooden exterior, but it is supported
by a thick metal armour, it also has deflector shields. If we
are going to defeat Tonitrua and bring him to justice then we
are going to have to infiltrate his ship, defeat his Pirate
cronies and then the Captain himself. Any questions?”
I raised my hand, “How many people on the team?”
“It will be just you and Kiera, you two seem to be a pretty
effective team”
“Right, and what ships will we be flying?”
“It js a two man ship, and it looks like this –“The boss changed
the projection slide to one of a small ship that, according to
the scale, was about the size of a car. The ship tapered to a
point at the front, there were some small wings on the side and
intergrated into these wings were some engines about the size of
a dustbin, there was a small guidance fin on the top, and extra
guidance fins before the wings on either side. It looked tiny in
comparison to Tonitrua’s ship. The Boss continued talking ”This
ship is small enough to slip under his radar, you should be able
to slip in, dispatch the pirates and slip out again – Tonitrua
is now wanted – dead or alive, but alive is preferable.”
“Thank you, Sir” I said
“When do we leave?” Kiera asked
“You leave now.”
“Now?” I asked, we had barely got back!
“Yes, now” The boss said, “There is no time travel involved here
– we are against the clock.”
“Of course.” Kiera said, she stood up and left the room, I
followed
“So, do you know where we are going?”
“Yes”
“Where?”
“To the hangar bay” she noted my blank face “It is one floor
below the roof”
“Thank you”. We walked to a lift and Kiera pressed a button –
conveniently marked ‘H’ I assumed that meant ‘hangar’, it
couldn’t really stand for anything else, except possibly
hairdressers, but that seemed more unlikely. The glass lift went
up, the view of the city was still unparalleled, I looked at it
and, frankly, I was a little saddened. I knew that I would
probably have to leave it soon, would I be alive in 2050 to see
it again? The lift doors slid open and I was surprised. The
hangar was completely unalike the one in 2013 – this was tiny!
There were no ships anywhere, just a massive landing pad. I was
really disappointed. The hangar was grey and it was dull, there
was no wall decoration and the whole thing stank of engine oil.
I turned to Kiera “Who drives the spaceship?”
“OK, let’s put it this way” Kiera said sarcastically “Which one
of us can actually fly a spaceship?”
“Good point”
“I know” Kiera walked over to a small control panel and started
pressing away at buttons. She then put her thumb to a glass
reader on the panel and it scanned her thumb. I could then see
why there was just one landing pad. The landing pad started to
open. Hazard lights started flashing around it as it split in
the middle. Through the gap came the ship the boss had shown us
on the screen. This system was nifty. The hazard lights stopped
flashing and Kiera walked toward the ship. “Come on Jonny! We
are against the clock after all”
“Right” I said, still stunned. I ran over towards the ship. The
cockpit slid open to reveal two seats – directional controls on
the right, information and navigation on the left. I got into
the left hand side. Kiera got into the right. “Voice command –
close cockpit and engage seatbelts” Kiera said, making herself
comfortable. The cockpit did, in fact, slide shut and a seatbelt
(if you could call it that – it was more like a massive ‘V’
shaped bar) engaged. Kiera looked at me “This is where the fun
begins” she said, with a slightly manic smile on her face. I
feared for my life. She typed some commands into the touch
screen that controlled the car and grabbed the steering wheel. I
felt the little ship shake a bit while she did this. “Engage the
hover mode” Kiera said to me. I looked all over the dash for a
button that might do this. I saw a small lever and pushed it up
slowly. The ship raised – it was now about three foot off the
ground. Kiera pushed a lever forward and the ship began to move
forward, towards a wall. The wall, however, opened and we
slipped through. “Kiera to control, we have lift off, please
transmit coordinates to our ship.”
“Control to Kiera, message acknowledged, transmitting
coordinates” We had gone above the clouds and were still
climbing, we went through the atmosphere (a most unpleasant
experience) and then we were into space. “Voice command –
artificial gravity on” Kiera said, before we started floating
off in the ship. The console beeped. ”What was that? I asked
“That,” Kiera said “was the console saying that the coordinates
have been transmitted. Where are we headed?” I looked at the
console, some coordinates came up and then a place name
appeared. I was never good at geography, and we never had to do
space geography! “It says that he is orbiting a system near
Cessefras Magna”
“A pirate planet.” Kiera said “Does it say what planet he is
orbiting?”
“Yeah, a planet called, umm, Ortinum”
“Great,” Kiera said, even though she clearly didn’t mean it
“Why is it great?” I asked, imitating the voice she used when
she said ‘great’
“Smugglers planet, one of the most wretched hives of scum and
villainy”
“The perfect place to go if you are a space pirate, I guess”
“Yep, and this is where we must go”
“Does this ship have a hyperdrive or a warp speed generator?
“Yeah, a hyperdrive that allows us to travel at warp speed”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“OK, are you gonna activate it?”
“Yep” Kiera pressed a button on the dash, the ship seemed to
lurch back and then forwards at an insane speed. I felt that the
skin was going to fall off my face! A few seconds later, it was
over. “How fast was that?” I asked
“That was in excess of six hundred million metres a second”
“But that is over twice the speed of light!”
“I told you future tech was good, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, I guess” I looked through the windscreen at the planet
below us, and then at Tonitrua’s ship. The photograph the Boss
had shown us really didn’t do it justice. It was even bigger
than I had imagined. It was surrounded by a weird pinky aura
that I couldn’t place. “Kiera”
“yes?”
“What is that pink thing surrounding Tonitrua’s ship?”
“Erm” Kiera looked at the ship “It is a planet based deflector
shield”
“What does that mean?”
“Pretty much what it says on the tin – A deflector shield that
is based on the planet”
“Oh, I see”
“Good”
“So, what do we do about it?”
“Deactivate the deflector shield”
“How do we do that?”
“Pff, talent”
“And what does this ‘pff, talent’ involve?”
“Basically” Kiera started illustrating her plan with her fingers
“We land on the planet, locate the deflector shield generator,
deactivate it, fly back to Tonitrua’s ship and continue with the
plan from that point onwards. Does that make sense?”
“Just about, do you know where the generator is?”
“On the planet” Kiera said, slightly sheepishly, she clearly
hadn’t got a clue! “By the way” she added “there is no
atmosphere, we will need the spacesuits” My mind flipped
straight to the suits like they had on the Apollo 11 mission –
big thick suits that were very clunky. I hoped that the
futuristic suits were better. “Where do we land?” I asked
“How about that patch of desert over there? No ships or
buildings is good, less chance of interception”
“That makes sense”
“Exactly” Kiera positioned the ship and we began our descent.
#Post#: 4627--------------------------------------------------
Re: Time split I (Can't be doing with the repeats)
By: Kiera Pearson Date: November 5, 2013, 11:59 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 15
The planet surface was not a pleasant sight, to say the least.
It was sandy and barren, where there wasn’t sand, it was arid,
cracks in the solid ground. This did not make trekking across
the planet surface at all pleasant
“Remind me again why we couldn’t park the ship closer” I asked,
panting in the intense heat. “Well” Kiera replied “we could have
got closer, if you wanted to run the risk of some space pirates
seeing us and blowing us to smithereens”
“Yeah, but was five miles entirely necessary?”
“Look!” Kiera stopped and looked at me “next time we land on a
planet for the purpose of destroying a shield generator guarded
by space pirates, you can choose the place where we park the
ship!” It wouldn’t take a scholar to work out she was agitated.
She was probably regretting parking so far away, but she could
never admit it. I looked ahead again, we had almost reached the
pirate outpost where the shield generator was located. There
were pirates everywhere, all wearing dirty and torn clothes – it
looked like they hadn’t seen a shower in decades! They were all
armed with laser guns. “We will have to take them out somehow”
Kiera said (this statement was accompanied with a thoughtful
expression on her face, trying to see how this could be
achieved)
“Well,” I said, a little smugly, “I have something that may be
able to help” I reached into my pocket and produced the apple
sized invisibility thing. “You certainly are full of surprises!”
Kiera said, she smiled, this may have been the first time I had
actually seen her smile, she might be warming to me (slowly, but
surely, there had been no death threats recently either, so that
had to be a plus) I pressed the button and looked at my hands,
they were now practically invisible. I guess I could only see
them because I knew they were there. I looked at Kiera and
nodded. She nodded back, we both knew what had to happen next.
Kiera drew her pistol and walked ahead, I followed, also drawing
mine. We crept into the outpost, the buildings were ramshackle,
apart from one. This ‘one’ had a massive purple beam of light
bursting from the top, so I had to assume that was the one
containing the shield generator. It was magnificent to look
upon. I stood staring at it, suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my
ribs. Kiera had elbowed me in the ribs, she gestured to the two
guards by the door and formed an L shape with moved her right
arm (the vertical part of the L) against her left arm, this was
sign language for subdue. I nodded, we each walked to a pirate
guard. I put my arm in front of his face and then pushed his
head back against the wall. I heard a satisfying thwack as his
legs turned to jelly and hit the floor. I ran to the door and
used my lock picker. We ran inside and I turned off the
invisibility field. “A lock picker as well?” Kiera asked
“Yep” I said, grinning. This was getting fun! The room we
entered was not like any other generator room I had seen. The
room was murky, I followed the beam down from the hole in the
ceiling into a machine, surrounded by several pirates, who were
not pleased to see us! They made towards us Kiera was clearly
not in the mood for a fight, she drew her pistol and shot both
in the head before they could reach us. They died before they
hit the floor. She walked over to the console and I followed
her. The keyboard had strange markings on them and so I elected
to leave it alone. Kiera clearly knew what they all meant and
had accessed the system. “Let’s see here” she said, squinting at
the screen (the only bright thing in this horrible room) She
rattled off several options including “Pirate roster” and “Black
Market sales log” until she saw the one she wanted – “Shield
Generator controls!” she exclaimed and she pressed a key that I
assume was enter. The screen went black. “What? NO!” Kiera
shouted at the empty screen
“What is it?” I asked
“They’ve cut the power!” Kiera shouted frantically
“Who have?” I asked, anyone could have noted an elevated stress
pattern in my voice
“Guess!” She replied “The pirates!”
“How do we take down the generator then?” Kiera pulled out her
assault rifle
“Three words. Lock and load!” she deployed her assault rifle and
started shooting the generator. I stood there for a second,
slightly dumbstruck. “Make yourself useful and shoot this
thing!” she shouted. I got out my assault rifle and started
shooting, it was strangely satisfying. The generator was
sparking and after about ten seconds the thing was a pile of
twisted metal, with no beam coming out the top. All that was
coming out of the top was smoke. The door burst open – there
were at least two dozen pirates, the only good thing was that
the door had bottlenecked them, we took them down. The shots
from both of our assault rifles had almost softened to melody in
my ears by the time the last pirates fell. I clambered over the
pile of bodies and made for the ship. Kiera was just a few steps
behind me. There were hundreds of pirates chasing us. Kiera
caught up to me “Watch this!” she said and pulled out a sphere
the size of a ping pong ball. She slid a panel on it to reveal a
red LED. She dropped it and kept running. I kept pace but looked
back. The little ping pong ball exploded for a good forty metre
radius. I could feel it on my back. “What was that?” I asked
“Well,” Kiera said, grinning, “you have your new gadgets, I have
mine”
“Touché”
“Quite” We arrived back at the ship and got in. The ship
executed a vertical takeoff whilst we were still getting in.
Kiera grabbed the controls and we shot off towards the
atmosphere so violently did she do this that I was thrown back
in my seat and hit my head. I didn’t complain. “This will not be
pleasant” Kiera said as we flew towards Tonitrua’s ship. It was
even bigger than I had first seen. “How do we land then?” I
asked
“Like this” Kiera said and flew into one of the sides of the
ship. After a screechy sound of tearing metal we were in and
flying straight into another wall, and another, and another. We
had flown through the whole ship. We were back in the space
surrounding it. With a yank on the wheel, the ship we were in
pulled up sharply, rotated and then landed on the deck. “So why
did we fly through the ship?” I asked
“Why not?”
“I guess” I said, as I pulled out my assault rifle
“Clear the deck!” Kiera shouted as she ran one way. I turned
the other way and immediately got my gun knocked out of my hand
by a particularly big pirate. I hit the deck and looked up at my
assailant. If I had to describe in a few words it would be ‘big
purple pirate beefcake’ as that is what he was. I noticed a
knife on the pirate’s leg and wrenched it off. I clutched it in
my hand, I was not good with fighting like this – I was used to
having a gun, I rarely fought with a knife. As I held it in
front of me the pirate backed up a little and drew a long sword.
I took the opportunity, flipped the knife in my hand so I was
holding the blade and threw it at the pirate’s head. Right on
target, the knife embedded itself into the purple pirate’s head.
He fell backwards. I picked up my rifle and then jogged over to
the body to retrieve the knife. I pulled it out of the pirate’s
head, wiped it on his tunic and then put it on my belt. It might
come in handy later. I pulled out my rifle and shot down the
last few pirates lurking on the side that I was told to cover. I
then ran back to rendezvous with Kiera. She was crouched by a
hatch on the far side of the ship. “In here?” I asked
“Yep.” She said, and dropped through the hatch. I dropped in
after her.
Chapter 14
The hatch opened to a lower deck. There were small patches of
light but it was mostly dark. The walls were all wood effect but
they were cold like metal. Kiera pulled out her glass tablet and
started punching information into it. “There will be pirates
here soon, we know that Tonitrua is on this ship, we either have
to find him and bring him in or ‘accidentally destroy the ship’
which would you prefer?”
“Well, personally I would prefer to destroy the ship and let him
explode with the wreckage”
“I am of the same opinion”
“Good, let’s blow the ship up then!”
“The best way to do it is to go to the main reactor and overload
it”
“Let’s do it”
“Let’s” We ran down the corridor, following Kiera as she
apparently knew where she was going. There were no pirates to
speak of, which was a relief. We dropped through more hatches
and ran through more corridors. Kiera (apparently) still knew
where she was going. All of a sudden we stopped. Before us was a
massive wooden door. Kiera twisted her body such that her
shoulder was facing the door and nodded for me to do the same.
“Three, two, one” she mouthed and we both charged at the door
and smashed it open. Standing in front of the massive generator
stood a pirate. He wore an old navy blue military long coat,
with rips and holes in it. He wore two belts, one around his
chest and one that met with the one around his waist and went
over his shoulder. He wore a three point captain’s hat and the
most concerning thing he was wearing was a most crooked smile,
showing rotten, and some missing teeth. “Wanted to blow up me
ship, did ye?” he said, in a sarcastic voice that sounded almost
cockney “That ain’t gonna happen, eh”
“Captain Tonitrua” Kiera said, “We are here to arrest you, if
you fail to comply we will blow up your ship”
“Nice statement” I whispered to Kiera,
“Not the time” she whispered back
“Are you going to comply?” Kiera asked
“Hmm… let me see” Tonitrua said “Umm… NO!” He drew out his
cutlass, which then glowed scarlet. He ran towards me and I
raised my assault rifle and fired, Tonitrua deflected all the
shots and chopped my gun cleanly in half. He put his cutlass so
it was almost touching my neck. “Any last requests, before I
send ye to Davy Jones Locker?”
“Not to you” and I closed my eyes and waited for the end, I
could feel the warmth from the scarlet cutlass. I reached down
to my belt and felt the knife I acquired earlier, could I use
it? Tonitrua raised his cutlass ready to strike me down. I
pulled the knife and plunged it into his leg. Tonitrua screamed
in agony and I punched him squarely in the chest, knocking him
back. His head hit the solid ground and a pool of what I assume
was blood (it was green) formed around him. I looked for Kiera,
but I could not see her anywhere. “KIERA! We have to leave now,
before more Pirates turn up!” Kiera jumped down from a gangplank
above me. “I see you have dealt with Tonitrua, come on!” She
rushed out of the room, we tore back up the corridors and
hatches, straight past the remaining pirates, who opened fire at
us. There were laser bolts flying everywhere, a couple of shots
scraped Kiera and I, but we kept on running. We made it to the
ship and took off immediately. Kiera put the throttle down as
far as it could go. The ship lurched forward and I looked at the
speed of our ship – it was in excess of 500 mph! I looked behind
me at Tonitrua’s ship and understood our need for a quick
getaway. The ship exploded into a billion pieces. The force
knocked our ship and we hurtled out of control, not knowing
where. All I could see was spinning, then flames and finally
black smoke. I opened the top hatch and got out. It was a
desert. I pulled myself through the hatch and put some
sunglasses on. Kiera stuck her head through the top hatch,
disappeared again and popped back up with a baseball cap on.
“Can we use our time manipulators to pop back to HQ?” I asked
“No, we are too far away – Earth is one of the core planets, we
are far away on the outer rim.”
“Can we send a distress signal?”
“Done” Kiera said
“What, already? I suggested it two seconds ago!”
“Well, I sent one before I got out here”
“OK, that would explain it”
“They could take up to a few days to get here”
“Right, so we are twiddling our thumbs until we get rescued?”
“Actually, no” Kiera said, with a manic grin on her face “Not
twiddling our thumbs” She reached into her bag and pulled out
the glass tablet, pressed a few buttons and passed it to me. The
screen flashed up with one word ‘Ligretto’. “Will it not run out
of battery?” I asked, praying that it would
“Nope,” Kiera said, “solar powered,” She gestured to the sun
“and we are not gonna run out of that in a hurry!” I sat down,
there was no way to fight this. We began to play ligretto when
an object floated down next to us. It was Tonitrua’s hat. “I
guess this is over then” I said.
“It’s never over” Kiera said “You should join the Time
Association”
“Really, but would I be allowed”
“I put in your recommendation, you should count yourself in
already – now, ligretto!”
I put my head in my hands, this was going to be a long wait.
*****************************************************