Part 2
Disclaimer: see previous chapter.
The house was old, broken down, dilapidated. It was full of stuffed and moth-eaten animals, broken down furniture, rundown plumbing. It had been clearly uninhabited for many years by anything bigger than vermin – moths, bedbugs, cockroaches...
Now, however, this situation appeared to be changing, as the chromatic light of a time anomaly had filled one of the house's rooms with its unearthly white light, breaking up old shadows and creating new ones until the time anomaly had vanished as suddenly as it had come.
One shadow, however, had remained behind, and it was misshapen.
The car was long and relatively massive – a rather modern machine, designed rather for city streets than an all-terrain vehicle and it showed.
"Where the deuce did all of these roots and bumps come from?" captain Becker snarled angrily as he checked under the car's hood. "Every time we deal with a time anomaly someone from the City Hall calls us and makes a stink – do you think it is time for us to reciprocate and call them about the state of the local road instead?"
"No go, Becker," Jess's apologetic voice came over the comm.-link. "This is really the city's suburbs, not London proper. I'm rather certain that the City Hall will be able to weasel out of this."
"What if Lester will get involved?" Becker was not backing down. "He detests these calls as much as the rest of us, and he got the legal savvy to make it stick."
"I'll pass it after the time anomaly is dealt with," Jess said firmly, "and there was a time anomaly – it's closed now, but can you please check to see that there is nothing left over from it? Or someone else, for that matter?"
"Yes, Jess," Becker rolled his eyes and turned to face the other occupant of his car. "Lady Merchant, sorry about the bumpy ride."
"Please. After the rides in couches over some of my old streets? This was quite tolerable," Emily Merchant said with a small smile. "Our ancestors may have invented the wheel, but its perfection occurred only now."
"Glad that you feel this way," Becker said slowly (he had his own opinion of the wheeled vehicles – i.e. that they were inferior to tanks), "but that is beside the point. Your ladyship is ready to go in?"
Emily did her best to suppress a rather unlady-like snort. Around a century of time's worth has come and gone, but titles still mattered in the British society (poor James Lester, he struggled so hard to gain a knighthood, only to learn that it was going to Philip Burton instead), and an owner of one was treated differently from other people – in Emily's case with a certain respect, even by Matt.
Matt... Emily was truly happy to see Matt Anderson once again, but the news about his escalating confrontation with Philip Burton had soured that occasion somewhat. Born and raised in the Victorian era, Emily Merchant saw what happened when two powerful men would go against each other – what happened to those caught between them and to the opponents themselves. It was not pretty and it was not something that Emily wished on the ARC in total.
"Why cannot Matt and this Burton person co-operate or at least talk to each other openly?" she asked Jess after learning of this.
"It's a person thing," Jess confessed to the older woman. "Matt thinks that he's going to save humanity. Burton thinks that he is going to save humanity. Since they got two very different ideas about how humanity is to be saved, and each has a very different idea as to how to do it. How can they get along, then?"
Emily had no answer, and neither did Jess or Becker. "Why are you staying out of it?" Emily asked the soldier.
"My loyalty is to the queen and country – I'm reasonably sure that Burton's is not, and I'm not too sure about Anderson either," Becker said flatly. "Plus in lieu of recent events I don't either of them trusts me too, so here we are."
"Yes, here we are," Emily said sadly, when the time alarm had sounded. "I'm going with you!"
Becker, who had turned around to go to the car, did not even break stride. "Fair enough. Jess, contact the others – if you can. I am off to fix this mess, alone or not."
This was then, now Emily and Becker stood in front of an old, albeit locked, wooden door, and Emily, for one, felt decisively anti-climatic, as she promptly told Becker.
"Well, I would rather have that than an apartment complex full of people," Becker confessed, "but I see your point as well. Jess, how's the back-up?"
"Not so good," Jess's voice was definitely displeased over the comm.-link. "Lately, everyone appears to be turning them off or jamming the signal or something. They may have reasons for doing that, certainly, but does that make my job easier? No, it does not!"
"I'm sorry to hear this, Jess," Emily said, sounding genuinely regretful, "but..."
"But?"
"But what can you tell us about this place?"
"Oh. Not too much," Jess sounded sheepish. "The records say that this is a private home, closed since sixties or seventies, uninhabited by anyone-"
Some noise came from the inside.
"Not anymore," Becker muttered into the comm.-link and kicked the door. The door promptly collapsed, as the thin wood that it was initially made out of, did not withstand the combined strengths of time and captain Becker. "Anyone?"
There was no sound in response to the collapsed door, but Becker and Emily saw a flicker of movement in the living room at the other end of the short corridor. "Right," Becker said, turning to Emily, "you got your EMP ready?"
"Oh, I don't have one," Emily said brightly, "I never got one issued. I still held on to my kukris, though!"
"Of course," Becker said flatly, "the ARC is a really civilian enterprise, all rules and regulations go out of the window. Let us go in. You'll get an EMP issued later."
"Great!" Emily said cheerfully, and the pair entered the house. This was almost the last action they undertook, for as they entered the room, the furniture was flung aside, and the head of the biggest snake that either Becker or Emily had ever seen (followed by the neck and the rest of the animal) came striking at them.
"Whoa!" military and survival instincts kicked in, and the pair jumped to the sides: Emily closer to a window, Becker further away from it. "What is that?"
"A snake?" Becker pointed out the obvious, as the mega reptile slowly shifted its position, now raising its neck and head above the two humans... almost to the very ceiling. It was of a monotone olive-brown colour with some darker spots upon it, except for the eyes, which were bright blue.
"I can see this for myself, captain!" Emily snapped angrily, even as the reptile appeared to be more focused on Becker than on her. "Though its eyes...I have my doubts about it!"
"...So do I," Becker sounded rather withdrawn, which, considering their circumstances, worried Emily even more. "The last time I saw something this shade of blue was on my last day of active duty, and-"
The snake began to undulate, shifting itself into strange poises and shapes (though its head was almost always in the middle), looking almost as if it was dancing. The remaining furniture – sofa, chairs, a small table – either was shifted away from its bulk, or was crushed by it into splinters. And Becker, who was looking right at the snake, appeared not to take it in stride, but to lose his composure, rapidly: he dropped the EMP and all but collapsed onto the floor, muttering some sort of nonsense, at least to Emily's ears.
And to Jess's, as the younger woman's voice came through Emily's comm.-link. "Emily? What is Becker's muttering about? What mates?" the young woman sounded frantic, but Emily, who saw that the great snake paused in its movements to launch another attack – one that Becker couldn't dodge – had other problems to take care of.
"Hey! You leave him alone!" she shouted at the reptile, as if the latter could understand English.
And maybe it did, as the snake shifted and struck at Emily before the woman could dodge it – but Becker, who apparently was less out of it than how it appeared, pushed Emily out of the way, jamming his EMP in the snake's jaws, even as it bit hard on the plastic, wood and metal.
The next moment the snake began to shake its neck and head, as Becker had jumped there, and held on for his dear life as if he was a mongoose... a comparison made even more apt by the relation of his size to the snake's.
"Emily? Help!" he managed to exhale as the snake did its best to bash him against the ceiling.
"On it!" Emily promptly replied as she grabbed her blades and jabbed them into the snake's spine. The reptile's hide and flesh were hard, but Emily's kukris were very good, and they sliced through the snake's vertebrae very easily.
Abruptly, the snake stopped bashing Becker and just dropped. Becker immediately released it – in vain, for the reptile immediately raised its head and neck and whirled, starring now at Emily, its throat inflating and deflating like a pair of bellows, and the gaze of its unnaturally blue eyes was hard.
Before Emily could do anything, even pull out her blades, "Excuse me," Becker said brightly, and jammed something into the reptile's jaws. Instinctively, the snake swallowed it, whatever that was, and Emily tacked Emily throwing her over the sofa, before the snake's throat burst.
"What was that?" Emily managed to wheeze – Becker had not been too gentle.
"A pellet grenade," Becker muttered in reply. "Supposed to stun, but it can kill in a pinch as well. And you're welcome."
Emily just grinned weakly in reply.
TBC
