Wave riding
5566 Time master's citadel
She slipped through the corridors and down to the docking bay. If the council knew what she was about to do they would surely stop her. Tampering with the timeline was forbidden altering your own was definitely frowned upon. As it was it was hard enough faking her way into the time masters when her older self was already present, simply to get her hands on a wave rider. Now all she had to do was commandeer one and she was off. The bombs she placed on the other ships, the citadel and the ship yards should keep anyone from following her to her destination. Then all she had to do was find one professor Albus Boardman and become his research assistant before the others showed up. Then it was off to destroy Savage.
She slipped into the docking bay and walked right up to the ship she had chosen. She punched in the door code and the ramp extended. She swiftly climbed on board heading for the bridge.
"I take it preparations are complete" said Gen
She flopped down in the pilot's chair and strapped in, closing her eyes briefly as the sound of Gen's voice reminded her of her mother's sweet tones.
"Yes time to get this show on the road" she said as she flicked switches and powered up the engines. A jump this far back was sure to hurt, but she didn't care. All that mattered to her was the end result. She was already heading for the exit by the time those watching the bay were even aware she was taking off.
"We're being hailed captain" said Gen
She sighed, guessing who was trying to talk to her and why, before the ship had said anything at all.
"Ignore them and calculate a void jump" she said
"Yes captain" said Gen
They jumped into the time stream a few minutes later while behind them the docking bay erupted in flames.
"Where to captain?" said Gen
"St Roche Louisiana 1974, I need to reinvent myself first or I'll stick out like a sore thumb "she said
She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. She was finally doing this, she couldn't believe she had the courage to follow through.
"Gen bring up the files on the crew we are going to be joining" she said
Nine photos filled the screen along with all the information that could be found on them. Savage and his people had done a very thorough job trying to erase any mention of the heroes from the timeline. Fortunately she had the patience and time to unerase it.
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The Anubis virus had been devastating, leaving behind just one percent of the population on the entire planet. All those who had the audacity to decry Savage's rule paid for it in blood, the blood of their families. Toward the end of the second American civil war he released a designer virus on the populace, infecting food crops, livestock and water supplies so not a single thing was left untainted by his poison and nothing would grow afterwards. Except it backfired on him as well, taking out foe and ally alike. It left the world a graveyard and those who were left still rose up to fight regardless of their age only now they were fighting for food.
Riley's farm was in the middle of nowhere and still it wasn't spared. It was a small place located in a simple farming community. The fighting had been close a few times but for the most part they were isolated. Her family had lived there for several generations, even though Riley herself was adopted. This was home and these people were family, in her nine year old heart nothing could touch that. So when the news first started talking about viral outbreaks Riley's family mostly ignored them, figuring that they were in such a remote area that they would remain untouched.
Until mom started getting sick with flu like symptoms that got progressively worse, then the bruising started and finally the bleeding. Dad tried to help her by taking care of her and us, until he fell ill too. He was upstairs fighting for his last breath when Riley felt the first tickle in her throat. She quickly set her baby sister up to survive on her own and then locked herself in her room, intending to quarantine herself until she was past this.
Except her sister nearly lit the house on fire trying to cook some eggs and Riley was forced to help her. The first cough coming out of Hannah's mouth scared Riley in a way nothing ever had before. Her parents had joined the thousands that had succumbed to the disease only a few days before, leaving the two young girls to fend for themselves.
Riley was sick too and now she was worried they were both going to die. So she put Hannah to bed with a pile of water bottles if she was thirsty, some crackers for the nausea and a bucket and did the same with herself. A few days later she heard voices downstairs arguing, then the other was quickly shushed with a whispered
"She can hear you, I remember this. I'm going to say goodbye to my sister while I still can" said the woman. Someone climbed the stairs
She heard a door open down the hall then Riley passed out. She laid in bed for almost two days until she had to climb out of bed to use the restroom.
She stumbled down the hall and into her sister's room and then collapsed to her knees. Her sister had died, while she fought to continue breathing just a few doors down the hall. Numbly she made her way to the front porch and collapsed on the stairs. The tears came at some point when she stopped being numb. That was right before the army showed up, guys in hazmat suits walked through her house, declared everyone dead except her and dragged her away to be forcibly conscripted into the military.
She was put on the front lines along with all the other young survivors, or at least those that showed promising side effects. The disease didn't just kill, in that one percent of the population that survived, it altered something. Just like it did to Riley, she found out later it was due to a mutated element in the virus.
She could feel the presence of water in everything and manipulate it, an ability she took to the battlefield with her. She learned to channel her anger through it and became ruthless to a degree that it scared her commanding officers and enemies alike. When the war was over Riley refused to go home, the farm was an empty shell without her family anyways. She fought to survive on the streets like the other kids and was content to stay there until she ran into a time pirate. She took his offer because she was starving, he offered food and she wanted answers. They wanted to use her, so in the end she did nothing to help them when the time masters arrested them. The time masters took pity on her because of her age and instead returned her home. He did however give her the answers she had sought and once she got them. She turned her back on the body she had been intending to join, used what she had learned of them, without them realizing it, and stole a ship right from under their nose.
Her plan was simple and something he would never see coming because he was too arrogant to believe anyone could hurt him, he was about to have that belief dashed
"We have exited the time stream where would you like us to put down" said Gen
She sighed and then nodded
"Barataria perserve"said Riley.
She leaned forward leaning her head against her knees while she waited for her vision to return and for the room to stop spinning before she tried standing. A day later she un-latched her harness and walked to the back of the ship and changed clothes. Emerging in bell bottoms, a jaws t shirt and vans.
"Cloak and stay that way until I tell you otherwise" said Riley.
Then she emerged from the ship and made her way along a trail that led to what looked like it was destined to become some sort of walkway. She glanced back at the wave rider's position just to make sure the ship wasn't in the way of the future path before continuing on her way.
She found the school easily and fortunately their system for retaining files wasn't computerized yet, so I was quite easy to insert her name onto a list for research assistant's right next to Dr. Boardman's name. She had just finished entering it when someone returned to the office.
"Oh hello dear, have you been helped?" said the woman
"Actually no, I was just hoping to check in before I start tomorrow" said Riley
"Oh yeah, that's a good idea here let me see, what's your name dear?" said the woman
She was frowning down at the list Riley had just added her name to.
"Riley, Riley Anderson" she said with a grin.
The woman smiled back and gave her directions to the professor's classroom and a time to show up. She also had Riley fill out paperwork with contact information on it. She swore mentally when it asked for an address and phone number. She gave the future street address for where she parked her ship and her cell phone number.
As she left the office she reached into her pocket and turned her phone to vibrate. She didn't need to be an actual time master to know answering a fiftieth century device in a century long before it was invented would be a bad thing. She would have to stay on her ship until they arrived, because she didn't have a lot of money on her person, or at least not in a currency they would recognize in this time period.
Her days after that, were filled with helping the professor sort through piles and piles worth of stuff and learning to adapt to this time period so she sounded like she belonged there.
The man was brilliant but a complete pig. It took her awhile to integrate herself into the man's good graces but Riley had always been a bit persistent. Still it took her six months to get him to trust her anywhere near his life's work. She was still sorting the important stuff, mostly what contained information on Savage and the two hawks.
She wanted everything to be easily accessible when they showed up, plus she was beginning to get fond of the old man and regretted that he would be dying soon. The day of the event, she locked up her wave rider, set it on autopilot should it be discovered and need to leave before she returned, stuffed a change of clothes into her bag that day and left the books on the ship. It was show time and she was both nervous and excited.
She was finally going to meet them. She felt like she was about to meet celebrities. She was tidying up the professor's workspace and gathering the last of the files he would need, while he sat at his desk typing up a paper he was working on. The typewriter stopped for some reason and she glanced up. The old man was snoring peacefully at his desk.
She ducked down behind the table, to shove the book, and papers exactly where the old man would look for it and also because she didn't want to be seen yet. Afraid they would ask her to leave if they saw her first. She heard a group of people walk through the classroom then knock on the professor's office door.
She froze where she was behind the counter and smirked when one exclaimed they were too late. She kept the snort of derision to herself, as if even death could keep that old man from this meeting. She heard the professor wake and heard him exclaim
"You're them" said Albus
What followed was an awestruck exclamation about the hawks past lives and then one of them said something about Vandal Savage. She resisted the urge to curl her lips into a snarl that his name seemed to always invoke in her. She quickly schooled her features and forced the hate back down.
"Yes it's over here" said Albus
Immediately going to the wrong stack. She shoved the last thing she was holding in her arms into place with a sigh and stood up.
"Actually no its not, I put everything on that subject into this stack" said Riley
"Oh Riley, I was wondering where you had gone" said Albus
She smirked if the man hadn't been taking a cat snooze he would have known she had never left. Albus went to the pile and blew the dust off of the dirtiest of the tomes, she waved her hand in front of her nose. She really should have dusted those.
The man was excited and virtually everyone in the group was ignoring her except for the male hawk, who was just eyeing her with curiosity, when she followed the group to listen to what the old man had to say. She had to admit she found his work fascinating. When Albus claimed the two hawks were his parents that had died when he was ten, she was in shock because she didn't know that.
She listened intently to what the old man was saying, even though she had read most of it already. Standing there with the objects of the story made all the difference to the tale, as she could see that the male hawk, Khufu remembered most of his past. She wondered briefly if he remembered what it felt like to die as well.
The strange man who had asked about Savage was asking the professor if he knew where Savage would be next, using the fact Savage had killed his parents as incentive. Riley knew exactly where he would be but she didn't dare share that knowledge. To do so would raise the groups suspicions and could get her left here. Albus was telling them, what was his best educated guess, when something chimed from the strange man. Stein suddenly clutched his head.
"Something's wrong with Jefferson" said Stein
She resisted the urge to smirk, even she knew enough to turn off her ringtones. The man looked embarrassed and turned his back on the group to answer his phone.
"We have to go" he announced as he headed towards the door.
The others looked confused and he bit out reluctantly that their ship was under attack before running out the door. The hawks hesitated, refusing to leave without their son. The time master had no choice but to agree to what they asked when they demanded to take Albus with them, they took off as a group. Riley quickly scooped up the book and shoved it into her backpack before booking it out the door after them.
Albus had given them his notes but those were in no way complete. They were running as a group now and heading towards the park. At one point the hawks vanished leaving Albus behind with the group, so Riley grabbed his hand and urged him forward. Two of the men were arguing about something that got left on the ship when something near them exploded. In reflex she grabbed the professor and pulled him down.
She heard a whooshing sound and looked up. Landing right in front of her was the male hawk. She stared in disbelief for a few seconds, she had thought that part was embellished but apparently not.
"Come on Albus I've got you" said the hawk man as he helped the professor to his feet.
Riley climbed to her feet at the same time and rushed after the professor, as the hawk man turned to meet the advancing time soldiers. It took every ounce of her self-control to not join in on this fight. The fact it would give away what she could do, at a time she couldn't afford to explain her origins, stayed her hand.
So instead, she grabbed the professor when he stumbled and took cover with the others behind some old farm equipment. The strange man from earlier pulled out a twenty third century sidearm and began shooting.
She resisted the urge to smirk when Boardman called it a laser pistol. Time master her mind mentally classified and resolved herself to be especially wary around this man. The big guy leading the attacking time master's forces threw a grenade in their direction. It landed close to their feet and, since Riley wasn't too keen on losing a limb and doubted the others wanted to either, she encased the projectile in water and made it roll away as if the man had bad aim.
The grenade exploded but it was a greatly reduced charge. They still threw themselves away from it. The old man in their group, Stein she could have sworn his name was, climbed to his feet said something about bonding with someone and told the time master to cover him, Palmer followed suit and the time master did just as he was asked, albeit he swore some beneath his breath.
She watched as Stein and Palmer booked it towards the ship. If she had any doubts that these were the right people, the presence of that ship dispelled it. Something thudded into the dirt beside her and she turned to see what it was.
"Shit!"said Riley
When she noticed it was another grenade. The time master turned, saw what she was looking at and reached for Albus to pull him out of the way before that Chrono's guy armed it. Which he was doing right now. She had just started encasing it like the last one when someone ran over Chrono's, then accused them of picking a fight with Boba Fett.
The time master rolled his eyes, then reached out and grabbed her hand.
"Come on dear, can't leave you here now" said the time master
So she pulled the professor to his feet and they ran for the ship just as a flaming man and a guy in some sort of flying suit emerged. Both hawks were executing aerial attacks on their opponents, smashing them in the head with what looked like a mace or straight out attacking their opponents.
There was gun fire everywhere and the time master was literally dragging them through it. Albus stumbled and nearly took them all down with him. She saw the blood before he was dragged to his feet by both hawks. The time master grabbed her hand again and practically threw her through the door to his ship.
Albus collapsed inside the door and the AI unit announced he was fatally wounded. The time master was climbing the stairs shouting orders, most likely heading for the bridge. She smirked when he told the AI unit to take them anywhere but here as he walked away. She leaned on the wall trying to catch her breath. The others followed him up the stairs as the hawks led Albus to the sickbay, which fortunately was not too far. She followed the others after the captain, pausing in the doorway for a completely justified awe struck moment, until the male hawk put his hand on her shoulder and guided her to a seat.
From the looks on everyone's faces none of them were happy with the time master and she worried that they might hurt the man. The time master had assumed the captain's seat and the others quickly climbed into theirs. Riley took the sole remaining empty seat. She pretended to fiddle with her harness and the big guy next to her reached over and latched it for her.
"Might want to hang on doll, ride gets a bit bumpy" said the man
She reached for the handles on the harness as if she was about to ride a roller coaster. If she remembered her first time jump it felt like exactly that. She felt the vibration of the engines and tightened her grip as the ship left the ground. The vessel kept shuddering as if it were still taking ground fire and Riley hoped she didn't just seriously miscalculate and get on a ship that was about to be shot down.
She felt the engines throttle down and knew they were in the zone. Gideon informed the captain that the ship had sustained some damage and the captain climbed out of his seat to handle it, sounding completely irritated. He briefly explained about the temporal zone then got snarky when Stein made a simple observation. He had just popped open a panel to start the repairs, all the while chiding everybody about their mistakes. Riley firmly resisted the urge to add he had made a few of his own.
Riley just sat there and observed the group interact, so far everyone seemed to be ignoring her impromptu inclusion in this party. The captain turned to say something else and the hawk woman hit him, then pinned him to a wall and demanded answers, the others backed up her demand and he relented. When he started to explain that he was a time master, was being the operative word, the blond woman in white punched him too.
"will you people please stop hitting me" said Rip
She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
He started being honest with them and Riley realized that Rip had lied to them all to get them to join up.
"Give me one good reason why we shouldn't kill you?" said the big guy
Riley swallowed nervously. If they killed the time master while they were in limbo the ship would automatically shut down leaving them stranded with a limited oxygen supply.
"Ditto the arsonist" said Stein
That shocked Riley for a few seconds because Stein didn't seem the murdering sort and she hardly thought lying constituted a murdering offense.
"Because Gideon won't obey your commands and you'll be stuck here forever" said Rip
"Who's Gideon?" said Riley
She knew already, but perhaps reminding them there was a neutral third party aboard would keep them from killing the man. The time master turned towards her as if just realizing she was here.
"Wonderful, just bloody wonderful" said Rip
Riley gave him an indignant and slightly offended look.
"Well fuck you too spaceman, you're the one that dragged me onto your ship" said Riley
Several of the others laughed at her exclamation.
"It's a time vessel not a space ship" said Rip
Palmer decried the mission as false, Rip defended it stating that he hadn't been lying about the ruthlessness of Savage. Riley knew he was telling the truth because she had proof in a bag at her feet and she had experienced it first-hand.
Though the latter she could not share. Rip went on the explain time master rules, ones Riley would see were never written if she had her way, forcing someone to be alone didn't make them a better person just a lonely one. When he explained what happed to his family Riley almost cried for the poor man.
In a defeated voice he offered to take them all home after he finished the repairs and Boardman stabilized. Then he turned back to repairing the ship. The hawks went to check on Boardman and the others left the room to think, only Riley remained in the room with the time master.
He seemed to be focused on the repairs and she didn't want to distract him. She wandered towards the view screen and looked outside. Everywhere was filled with swirling green cloud like masses that resembled cotton candy.
"Far out!" she whispered and turned to find the time master staring at her.
"Are you really a time traveler?" said Riley
She let the wonder and awe seep into her voice, some of it she didn't have to feign. She honestly thought traveling through time was awesome. He smirked at her.
"Yes, yes I am, I don't think we've been properly introduced I'm Rip, Captain Rip Hunter and you are?" said Rip
"Riley, Riley Anderson" said Riley
She knew if he looked her up that it would show the false boring future she had supplied, complete with soap opera obsession and five cats. Nothing at all that would affect the timeline and possibly the Disney character.
"Why don't you go down to the med bay and get something for your nerves. I am sure the professor will be glad of your company, I'll take you home just as soon as I can okay" said Rip
She smiled at him, now that he mentioned it, she should be a bit shaken up by that experience or at least pretending to be. She fisted her hands into her skirt in what would look like a nervous gesture to anyone else.
"Thank you, that's sweet of you, maybe a little tea will calm my nerves" said Riley She was pouring on the shy act just a little bit. He nodded and smiled at her.
"The med bay is down the stairs and to your left, the galley is three doors down from it on the opposite side" he said
She knew why he wanted her out of the room Riley was no fool. He intended to look her up and didn't want her to hear the pertinent details about her future. She exited the room and walked down the stairs.
"Gideon?" said Rip
"She has just exited the stairs on the lower level sir" said Gideon
"Good, now look her up, let's just hope she doesn't add to our woes" said Rip
He turned back to the repairs as Gideon rattled off that she was destined to become a supermarket checker slash crazy cat lady in the future.
"Well nothing there, good, one less thing to worry about" said Rip
Riley was in fact doing the exact opposite of being a nuisance. She had poked her head into the med bay to check on the professor and found both hawks cradling each other, the woman appeared to be weeping. The guy looked up at her approach.
"How is…"said Riley
Carter shook his head no and Riley responded with a frown.
"Gone" said Carter
Riley looked at the old man lying so peacefully on the table, a twinge of regret and loss passed through her and then was quickly replaced with resolve. She had to get them to see Rip's point of view. She felt the tears pooling in her eyes and wiped them absently.
"At least you got a chance to say goodbye" said Riley softly
Then she left the room before she said anything more. She headed for the galley and entered the room. She found Stein trying to find something.
"What are you looking for?" said Riley
The man jumped slightly.
"Sorry didn't mean to startle you" said Riley
Holding her hand out in a placating gesture
"It's quiet all right dear, I was just looking for some tea" said Stein
Riley pulled open the pantry door.
"Have you tried this one?" said Riley
"Actually yes but it appeared to be stuck" said Stein
"Naw just has a boat latch, see" said Riley
She pointed out the small inner latch that looked like a child proofing drawer latch.
"Oh okay, thank you..."said Stein
He deliberately left the end of that statement open.
"Riley, here it is" said Riley producing a box of tea bags.
"Professor Stein, nice to meet you dear, sorry you got sucked into this" said Stein He sighed in relief when she held up a box of tea and turned back to the row of appliances with a frown on his face.
"Now all we have to do is figure out which one is the tea kettle." said Stein