Reload.

Chapter One.

By DeceptiveSoftness [ Softie ]

The sun shone reluctantly in through a chink in the thick curtains, as though unwilling to pierce the near religious darkness of the room, to reflect off the warped maze of steel and wires that had been constructed in the middle of the room like an alter.

It also brought the two guards, black clad and silent, into slight relief. They wore odd, helmet-like, contraptions on their heads that led down into wide, bug like goggles. The overall appearance was that of two, strangely shaped flies flitting around the hulking metal like moths drawn to a flame.

Of course, these weren't ordinary guards and this was no ordinary guard duty. The black jumpsuits they wore were bulletproof and so were the helmets. The helmets had the added bonus of having voice activated phones built into the sides that enabled them to call for back-up in seconds. The goggles were infra-red and each of them wielded HK MP7 sub-machine guns and were more then proficient in using them.

Despite their equipment they were uneasy. Under normal circumstances they were never allowed in this room, in fact, only one of them had ever seen the interior before and he'd been working for their employer, known only as the Doctor, for near on twelve years. The guards had been under strict orders to never cross the threshold of the room under pain of death.

Their employer was serious too. Once, a new guard who'd had too much arrogance and not enough experience had decided that if he was going to be guarding a door then he wanted to know what was behind it. The new guy hadn't taken less then three steps into the room when an alarm sounded and one of the Doctor's personal body guards had come storming up the corridor. He hadn't even given the guard a chance to explain before he was shot, once in the head, at close range. No-one had attempted it since.

So, when they had been told to enter the room and guard the metal contraption with their lives, both men were understandably anxious. The taller of the two paused in his pacing and sighed, the sound was amplified by the strange, conical shape of the room and echoed eerily. He turned to his partner who had also stopped pacing and was now reclining against the railing of the platform surrounding the metal monstrosity.

"Any idea what's goin' on?" the taller one asked. He'd only been working here a few months but even he knew that something strange was up. The smaller man tilted his head to the side, he probably meant it to look thoughtful but with the oversized helmet he resembled an insect sizing up it's prey for a meal. The taller guard shivered despite himself.

"I heard that the Doctor's new lab assistant turned out to be a traitor." he said slowly after several moments of silence. The taller guard actually took a step back in shock and frowned beneath his helmet. He had liked the new assistant, everyone had, it was rare to find a scientist who wasn't so far up his own ass that he would deign to talk to the guards.

"Alex Lynch? Really? Jesus, guess you can't really trust anyone these days." he muttered, glaring sightlessly at the platform. The smaller man nodded in agreement. "Yeah., he seemed like a decent guy but it just goes to show that even the nicest people can be shitty underneath. Apparently he was workin' with the Doctor on this-" he jerked his thumb behind him to point at the twisting metal. "- and he stole some real sensitive documents. I figure the Doc wants this place locked up tight in case the little bastard tries to do somethin' to it."

The taller guard wrinkled his nose and spat to the side to try get rid of the sudden bad taste in his mouth. He had really grown to like the blonde man with the serious, friendly brown eyes. He used to take his lunch breaks just when the guards changed shifts so he'd often join them in the cafeteria. Alex hadn't been like the other assistants at all. Of course, he looked almost identical, with his wire rimmed glasses, white coat, and slicked back hair he was a mirror image of the rest of the mousy, stuck-up men who were too busy hunched over their test tubes to get to know the people who made it possible for them to work safely.

But, at the same time, he was the total opposite. As much as he seemed to downplay it, it was obvious that he didn't need protection, the man was built strong and slender and moved fluidly, he looked like a dancer compared to the stumbling, shuffling scientists he worked alongside. He was intelligent but he didn't have that gleam in his eyes like the others. He didn't have the unquenchable thirst for knowledge like the rest. If anything, he seemed more at home chatting with the guards then he did cooped up in a lab with the rest of his ilk.

The taller guard bit back the sudden spike of misplaced betrayal he felt. It wasn't like Alex had betrayed him personally but it stung all the same. Both his pride and his sensibilities chaffed thinking about how the amiable man had managed to hide his true nature from him and that he had turned against his employer.

The tall guard had worked for several employers in his line of work and he'd been as unfailingly loyal to the first as he was to the Doctor now. He'd made it his work ethic to be the perfect guard. He did his job, kept his head down and didn't ask questions. But Lynch had gone and turned that on it's head, it felt as though he was spitting on the guards sensibilities. He tightened his grip on his gun and ground his teeth together, directing the sharp sting of betrayal into bitter anger. If Alex did make his way back here then he would find no sympathy from the guard.

The smaller man snorted quietly from his perch on the platform. He didn't know what his partner was thinking but he could give a good guess. That Lynch boy had pulled the wool over all their eyes. He'd gotten them good and the guard almost wished that the little bastard would come back. Just so he could get the satisfaction of putting a bullet between his eyes. Like the other guard he took the betrayal seriously, he had even liked the kid until he pulled this stunt, and the second the traitor showed his face he was dead.

The machine behind him hummed and some of the pipes lit up an acid green. Neither guard paid it much attention, the metal contraption had been humming and buzzing and lighting up on and off since they'd walked into the room. It was vaguely rectangular with a single thick pipe in the middle and two thinner prongs that jutted out and faced the platform. On the edge there was a slender lever with a red warning signs all over it and beneath that there was a small screen which showed the numbers one and eight. Eighteen. That was how long the machine had existed. Eighteen years, waiting and charging energy, for what the guard had no idea. The numbers glowed with the same eerie green light as the pipes and the entire thing gave the smaller guard the creeps.

He rolled his shoulders to stretch out the kinks and looked longingly down at his watch. The ticking hands showed that they still had another fifteen minutes until their shift was up. It was times like this, when the mind numbing boredom trumped the pay check, that he seriously considered changing his line of work. He had a few degrees under his belt, he'd gone to university before deciding that his skills lay elsewhere, and it wouldn't be too hard to find alternate employment. Of course, no-one else paid quite like the Doctor, if he waited just a few more years he'd have enough to retire peacefully for the rest of his life.

He pushed off his helmet and tiredly rubbed his eyes. Just fifteen minutes and he'd be able to get some real rest. The smaller guard smiled and looked away from his watch just in time to see the door slam open, beaming the sterile light of the corridor into the darkened room. He was momentarily blinded and blinked franticly to dispel the black spots in his vision as a figure darted into the room. He heard a metallic crash as something hit into the platform but was unable to do much else then recoil way from the source of the noise.

The taller guard had been facing the other way so he was not hindered by the sudden influx of light. He reacted swiftly, pulling his gun up and around to fire, but the intruder was quicker and he was knocked backwards by a well placed kick to his stomach. The gun clattered to the floor and the figure closed the distance between the two and lashed out again, this time with a high kick to the face.

The jumpsuit and helmet protected him for the most part but the sudden attack left him disoriented and he reacted too slow in reaching for his dropped gun. The stranger, again displaying his superior speed, snatched the gun up and levelled it at the guard. The tall man had enough time to see a familiar face twisted in a rueful grimace before a hail of bullets slammed into him. They couldn't pierce the protective fabric of his jumpsuit but the force of the bullets was still strong enough to break bones and he was unconscious by the time he hit the floor.

By now the smaller guard was able to clear his vision and he was not going to be taken as easily as his partner. He'd pulled his helmet back down and his vision was tinted green but the figure holding the gun down below the platform showed up as a bright swirling mass of red and blue. The guard could easily slip into the shadows but the intruder had no chance of getting away. The guards lips twitched up into a smile as his fingers tightened around the trigger before he was suddenly blown off his feet by a small explosion.

The metallic clanging he'd heard before was actually the clank of a small, low powered hand grenade that the intruder had lobbed at the machine when he'd first entered. The force of the blast knocked him off the platform and he was forced to let go of the gun so that he could soften his landing. Unarmed and outclassed, he could only glare hatefully as the intruder jogged calmly over and tugged off his helmet. The smaller guard spat up at the tanned face of Alex Lynch and tried to lash out but was stopped by a single, precise blow to the back of his head.

The intruder straightened and dusted invisible dirt of the lapels of his white lab coat. His hair, which had been previously slicked back, now stuck out around his head like a spiky halo and his glasses were sitting skewed on his nose. Not that it mattered of course, they were just for show, he had perfect vision. It was the transmitter wired into the frame that was important, not the lenses themselves.

He looked curiously up at the behemoth of winding steel and rubber and hefted the small object he held in his hand. It looked a like an inhaler but that was all, in reality it was another bomb, this one larger than the one he'd used before. He was going to use it to destroy the twisting tower but first he had to figure out where to put it. It was weakest near the centre, where all the wires met to form the core of the machine, so he quickly hopped up onto the platform and pumped the inhaler three times in quick succession before lobbing it into the mass of wires and steel poles.

He then turned to leave but stopped short at the sight of the man standing in the door way. He was small and slim, almost girlish, with deathly pale skin, a wild plume of white hair and cold green eyes. His name was the Doctor and behind him stood two of his most capable body guards, Keith and Derek, who had their guns trained almost lazily on the cornered traitor.

"Well, well, well it looks like we've caught ourselves a rat!" the Doctor boomed, his voice surprisingly loud for such a small man. He clicked his fingers and Keith fired with unerring accuracy at the platform. The intruder cursed when the platform buckled beneath the hale of bullets and started to tilt alarmingly. He reached out with a hand to steady himself on the metal monstrosity behind him and was gratified to see the Doctor's face contort angrily.

"Get your filthy hands off that! Don't touch it! No! No stop, don't move an inch!" he screeched and the intruder was intrigued to hear real fear in scientists voice. He raised an eyebrow in curiosity and then ran his hand down, closer to the lever.

"What does this do exactly? Hmm, Doctor? For all the time you kept me working on it you never did tell me what it was for." he said conversationally, hoping to buy some time as his fingers inched towards the lever. Whatever it did the Doctor was clearly terrified of him setting it off, he hadn't seemed to mind shooting at it though so that meant that it could probably only be activated by using the lever. The Doctor was quickly crossing the space between the door and the platform, flanked by Keith and Derek who leered menacingly at the intruder.

"Working on it? Pah, you're no scientist! You're a rat! A spy! Don't try to fool me Rider, ah yes, I know your real name! You couldn't fool me!" he hissed and the blonde man didn't bother to point out that he had managed to fool him for three months until he'd finally decided that he'd gotten enough information and had left.

Of course, as it turned out he hadn't gotten enough information and so here he was, trying to get rid of what was turning out to be one of the most annoying objects he'd ever encountered in his entire life. Hours of pouring over minute measurements had left him with a stirring resentment for the humming tower and he was going to enjoy blowing it up. The inhaler-bomb had a ten minute stall time, it had been built specifically to give him enough time to get out of range. How many minutes had gone by? Five? Six?

"Stop where you are rat! Don't think I can't see your hand! Pull that lever and I'll kill you!" the Doctor yelled but the intruder had had enough, hopefully whatever the tower did would provide him with enough of a distraction that he could escape. He wrenched the lever down and then threw himself to the ground as bullets rained just inches away from his head. The Doctor screamed curses but it was too late.

The machine started to shudder and groan and the green light burned brighter than every before. For a moment the room was filled with nothing but the humming and whirring of the machine and Alex was regretting pulling the lever as it wasn't giving him quite the distraction he had hoped for. Suddenly the green light started to race through the wires and congregated at the end of the twin prongs stretched out over the broken platform, directly over Alex's head.

He barely had the time to open his mouth in shock before the machine shook wildly and released the light with a loud hiss. The twin beams of sickly green light slammed into him with the force of a

battering ram and he let out a piercing scream as the light seemed to cut through to his very core. It was as though he was being pulled apart in a thousand different directions. He'd never been in this much pain before, it was like being flayed alive, dipped in acid, suffocated and set on fire all at the same time.

His screams mingled with the sound of the Doctor yelling, the guards cursing and finally, the loudest sound off all, the bomb finally detonating. The only mercy was that Alex was no longer there to get caught in the resulting explosion. He wasn't on the platform or even in the room. All that remained of the pseudo-scientist was a faint wisp of smoke that was immediately blown away as the metal burst outwards in a lethal ball of flames and twisted steel. Within seconds there was nothing left of the building but a rising plume of smoke, all traces of both the Doctor, his guards, and Alex were completely erased.

Later, when the accident was investigated, he would be lauded as a brave man who'd sacrificed himself to bring a mad man to justice. His 'death' would be mourned by the few who had known him and tactfully ignored by those who didn't. The circumstances of his 'death' would be buried under a mire of secrets and deceptions and Alex might even have been amused to hear that the cause of his death would be officially recorded as a 'car crash.

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A/N: Confused? That's understandable, so am I. =P

This IS going to be a time travel fanfiction and it's set around three years after Scorpia Rising. Because it's set after SR that means that it will definitely contain Spoilers for the entire series so if you want to find out for yourself I'd recommend waiting until you've read the books.

This chapter was kept deliberately vague. You know that Alex is eighteen and apparently still working for an Intelligence Agency of some kind. Though, seriously, hands up who actually thought that they'd leave him alone?

Not only is this time travel but it's kind of a kid!Alex story as well. The more observant of you might have noticed that the machine had the number eighteen on it and Alex is eighteen years old, well to be specific he's eighteen and three weeks. You can guess the years he's going to go back.

If you enjoyed it then please let me know in a review and, heck, if you didn't like it then still review and let me know why you thought it sucked. Constructive criticism is God!

Thanks for reading.

-Softie.