Hey guys! I'm back with the next chapter. I thought it wouldn't be good enough, but apparently it was good enough. So, what's in this chapter: we have the mystery guy, the twisted version of this city (probably Portland) and almost everything else you mentioned in the reviews. Speaking of which, here are my responses before you can go to this chapter:

Boris Yeltsin: Thanks for the review! Here's the next chapter.

TKDP: He can indeed be bad news. And you'll know whether they live or not when it's revealed later in the story. That is quite the theory you're talking about. I loved that line, too! Thanks for reviewing!

PurpleNicole531: Thanks for reviewing! They'll soon have bigger problems than their powers not working. You'll meet the guy now.

cecilia. dryan: Here's the next chapter. Thanks for reviewing!

iluvninjagoTNSBFWgirl: Thanks for reviewing! Here's the update!

daphrose: Wow, that's a lot of questions. You will get the answers soon, some of them in this chapter. Thanks for reviewing!

Enjoy!

-Writer207

Future, time unknown

The young man – Cyd and Shelby guessed he was about twenty years old – stood five yards away from them and had a determined look on his face. His short blonde hair curled slightly and his green eyes were fixed on the two teenage girls in front of him. His clothes were all dark colors – black, very dark green and dark blue among others – and looked like any soldier would wear, along with some improvised armor, like a home-made chest plate. His primary weapon was a steel bar, but the girls rather looked at the holster around his waist, containing a small gun.

Even though he was the type of guy they'd rather not meet anywhere, they just stood there and stared at him, petrified, afraid of what he would do to them now they're caught. Was the woman warning them for this particular young man? He took one step in their direction and then stopped.

"You have to watch out," he told, "It is dangerous this time of the day." He watched them, expecting a reaction. Maybe he wanted them to run, maybe he wanted them to stay and say something. Either way, Cyd and Shelby had no idea what the young man wanted from them. Because they had no idea what was going on in this time, why it as dangerous, they had no idea what they had to do.

"Why is it dangerous?" Cyd asked the guy. This prompted Shelby to grab Cyd and pull her one step away from the guy, to talk to her in private.

"Eh, Cyd," Shelby then said, "maybe we should leave him alone." Cyd knew why Shelby said something like that: the guy scared her. Cyd had the same feeling about him, but they needed to have a bit of information about the world they had just stranded in. It's not like they could go home.

"We need to know why it is so dangerous out here. Those people are inside for a reason and I wanna know why." Then she repeated her question so she was sure the man heard it. He took another step in their direction, but not further than one step. As if he too wanted to keep his distance.

"You are not from around here, are you?" He said, and there was a slight change in his facial expression – he showed some interest in them, but it wasn't too visible. With the bar, he pointed to the road behind them. "The patrol is passing by in less than five minutes, so we do not have much time right now. Go find shelter and no, it is not enough to hide behind a tree or someone's house. I am certain someone will help you." Again, he waited for their reaction.

"So they're hiding in their houses because of some patrol. Who says they're not just afraid of you?" Cyd then said. As soon as she said it, she felt a little braver than she was for talking to this armed stranger.

"They are not…" he began, but paused, as if he was looking for the right word. Eventually, he began again, "I am not the reason they are hiding in their houses."

Before Shelby and Cyd could say anything, the young man continued. "This is your final warning. Go save yourself or stay and be killed. It is your choice. I will leave you alone." The girls turned to each other.

"What do you think we should do?" Shelby asked Cyd, "because I'd like to go inside now."

"Maybe that's what he wants," Cyd said, "even if going inside is the best thing to do. Maybe there are more guys like him walking around who don't want any people around." They turned their head to where the young man stood. Except that the guy had left and now they were all alone now.

"Where'd he go?" Cyd then asked, looking around to see if she could find the mystery man. Shelby shrugged.

"I don't know." she responded, not able to find the guy. Maybe it was better they couldn't see him. Maybe it was better he wasn't around.

"Maybe we should leave," Shelby then suggested. Cyd agreed with her. They had no idea where the guy was and the safest was to leave the place and go somewhere else, where this man might not be.

"Let's go home," Cyd said. They were going to the Marcus home. They had ended up a couple of blocks away from the house, so it wasn't a long walk. They were lucky the streets were the same as they were in the present.

"Do you think we're going to be killed?" Shelby eventually asked out loud.

"I don't think so," Cyd reacted, "This place doesn't look like it can kill you, does it?" She was right. This future Portland didn't look like it could kill you at any given minute, even if the emptiness of the streets and the silence were a little unnerving. After all these years, no matter how much have passed, this still was one of the most peaceful neighborhoods in Portland. They wondered what they would find once they reached the house.

As soon as they wanted to turn left, they found the patrol the man had told them about. It just wasn't what they had expected. For starters, there weren't any people involved. It was a two-robot patrol, along with one flying robot hovering above them as well. These robots, standing at least two meters tall, looked like they jumped right out of a sci-fi movie, blinking in the sunlight with creepy red dots as eyes. They didn't look friendly at all.

Cyd and Shelby screamed when the robots noticed them – which was almost immediately after they came in their sight. They tried running away but the robots were faster. Each of the robots grabbed the shoulders of the girls, almost crushing them in the process, and the third one came down. Cyd and Shelby wished they were able to time travel. They touched each other – the robots didn't keep them away from one another, so holding each other's hands was fairly easy – and thought about home in the present, but nothing happened. Yet. They hoped it would work, but it didn't.

"You broke the law," the third robot said in a mechanical, monotone voice. The girls wouldn't be surprised if all robots 'talked' like that, with that same voice. "Going outside during curfew: 11:00-13:00 and 22:00-07:00. Former punishment: five years of prison, adding a year per minute outside. Current punishment: death." The third robot lifted his right arm and it turned into a blaster. Cyd and Shelby had no idea what it would do (except that it would blast them) or what the damage would be, or how much pain they were going to feel. The girls closed their eyes and cowered away, wondering if their lives would come to an end now.

"Sentinels!" Cyd and Shelby opened their eyes. They were saved by the same blonde guy who noticed them earlier. "I am outside during curfew. I carry a weapon," he moved his bar, "and a vintage gun, fully loaded. I am doing more illegal stuff than those two combined. You should focus on me." Cyd and Shelby were surprised the robots didn't attack him immediately, and that they just let him talk. The third sentinel turned its full attention to the young man.

The sentinel approached him with a reasonable speed, something it shouldn't have done. The young man tightened his grip on the bar and with one swing, he hit the sentinel's blaster. It was completely destroyed. It could be repaired, but not right away. He then also hit the sentinel's face before running towards Cyd and Shelby. The sentinel, who expected he ran away from the trio and not to them, went in the opposite direction.

"You followed us?" Shelby then said out loud, because he definitely hadn't been there when they left. The man nodded, looking behind him. The sentinel was coming back. He sighed. Then, he turned his back to the girls and pressed some buttons on his watch.

"Frey," he began, ignoring the girls behind him and the sentinels around him, "sentinels have found me. Ten minutes should be enough. Make it work. I apologize if I do not make it." Then, he hit the sentinels behind him on their arms, without hurting the girls, destroying their blasters in the process. It had the effect he had wished for – the sentinels released Cyd and Shelby and focused all their attention on the young man.

"Run," he said, not looking at them, focused on the sentinels around him. Shelby and Cyd ran away, not wanting to stay around these sentinels anymore. When they had created a reasonable distance with the sentinels – some sixty yards – they stopped and looked back.

The young man was still fighting the sentinels. The right arms of all three sentinels were broken. It was the arm where their blaster was located, so at least they couldn't hurt him that way anymore. Unfortunately, there are many more ways to make him suffer. One sentinel grabbed his bar and threw it away, breaking the glass of the window of someone's house. In the meantime, another one hit him in the stomach, sending him flying a few yards before hitting the concrete.

It was a miracle he recovered that fast and was able to crawl away. The third sentinel, the one who hadn't done much, came closer to the guy until he had caught up on him in a matter of seconds. The sentinel's left arm transformed into a four-inch-long blade. He pushed the blade in the guy's stomach and immediately pulled it out again.

"No!" Cyd and Shelby yelled when they saw the sentinel do it. They may not have known him at all, but he was willing to give his life for them. It didn't look good for him, though. He did move slightly, remaining completely silent, refusing to produce any sound, but it seemed he wouldn't survive another minute.

The sentinels turned their attention to Cyd and Shelby again. Without hesitation, Cyd and Shelby turned around and continued running. They would never be able to outrun these sentinels, but they didn't have to.

A bright white light covered them all. If they waved their hand in front of their faces, they wouldn't be able to see it. This light was present everywhere and it gave them an uneasy feeling, because it seemed like the world had turned into this white space. There was no sound, no grass, no concrete to walk on and yet they stood there safely. They didn't move, though, afraid they would fall or do something they would regret later.

The white bright light only remained for half a second before the regular world came back. As they looked around, their environment had changed. They were still in the future, but they were on the spot where they ended up after traveling here.

"What just happened?" Shelby wondered out loud. She turned her head to the nearby house, where she'd seen the lady. Again, the lady was standing in front of the window, non-verbally begging her to come inside her house.

"Did we do this?" Cyd then asked, confused, like Shelby. They had traveled back in time, but they hadn't done anything. They didn't touch each other and didn't think of this particular time – they had been too busy running away from the sentinels to care about that. Then, the woman was gone and they heard a familiar voice yell.

"Hey, you two! What are you doing?" They turned around and saw the blonde mystery guy stand there again, with his bar in his hand and the gun in his holster. He was fine, as if the sentinels hadn't attacked him. It didn't look like he knew what was going to happen soon. "It is dangerous out here. The patrol, the sentinels, they are coming in less than five minutes. I can bring you to a safe house, where they will not find you. It is just a few streets away." He pointed with a bar in the direction of the safe house, standing in the opposite direction of where the sentinels would come from. "You must come with me or you will die. The punishment for breaking curfew has changed." He took one careful step towards them, as not to scare them away. Yet all Cyd and Shelby could do was stare at him in awe. The part where sentinels tried to kill him hadn't come yet, but they had expected him to feel a little pain after this sudden time jump.

"Are you okay?" Shelby then asked with some newfound courage. "I thought those robots killed you." The young man's facial expression changed. You now could see confusion in his look.

"You remember the jump?" He wondered out loud. He wasn't expecting a reaction.

"Yes, we remember the jump. What's going on here?" Cyd reacted. The young man didn't respond right away.

"Change of plans. You are coming with me. I suggest you keep up, because I am not going to rescue you a second time." He then turned around and walked away. Because they had no choice and didn't want to stay around to be caught by the sentinels, they followed him. Saving their lives made Cyd and Shelby trust him a little, his bravery would allow him to protect them. And if there were more sentinels around, they would need the protection. So far, they didn't like the future at all.