Chapter 2
Myka had a lot experience with heart break. Helena Wells was close to the worst she had ever had. Two and a half years ago Myka looked at her new partner. Curiosity was one of her most fatal flaws.
"So what exactly did you mean when you said many of your lovers were men?"
Helena could not help but grin at the curious question. She had made that comment poignantly towards Myka's curiosity about Helena's past. Helena had quite a history, and to tell the truth, some of the most complex parts of her own history were her lovers. Which, even to the standards of this century, were staggering to say the least.
"Just exactly what I said darling. As I was not limited by the confines of my sex's station, nor was I held within the thought of proper relationships. I refused to be limited to the idea of falling in love with the opposite sex alone. I think this century calls it bisexuality." Helena smiled at the way in which the world had finally accepted at least the possiblity that people can love more than what society told them was proper. "I do enjoy this new world emensly, if you can forgive the pun."
Myka smiled, not at all surprised how Helena could put her in such a comfortable ease. "How do you do that?"
"Do what darling?" Helena inquired.
"Take my nerves and sooth them with such ease? " Myka questioned before she could stop herself. It was quite an intimate question that she wished she could take it back or change the subject.
"Simply darling, we are mated souls... kindred spirits that could not be separated by time. No matter what, I believe our similarities is what will keep us together." Helena said without a single doubt in her mind. She was broken, but the one thing that still grounded her was the woman in front of her. It was tragically beautiful. Helena only wished it was enough. Myka looked at her with such unfettered fascination. Helena had summed up exactly what Myka was thinking in a way that melted her heart. There was just one thing that tugged at Myka, something that she could not quite place, she could almost feel it but she could not put it into words. That bothered her most of all, being a logophile, words were a part of her soul. The fact that she was unable to define her feelings about what HG was not saying made her nerves come back. Even her smile could not hide her doubts. But she saw that HG was kind enough not to comment on it.
Myka looked at the picture on her dresser. Before HG had tried to destroy the world, she and Myka were slowly growing closer. In a way Myka was always afraid to address. One way she never thought she would consider, it was both beautiful and quite scary. She had have friends that she shared commonalities with but never this much. It was all new to her and rather difficult to understand. She didn't even realize that she had picked up the picture and smiled at the memory.
A year and half ago...
"Tell me, have you ever gazed upon the full book collection of the Warehouse? " Helena inquired, knowing that this would be something she would love to share with Myka.
"Oh yes, it is the most amazing collection that I have ever seen..." Myka started before she saw a little smile on Helena's face. It clearly said that she knew something, something that Myka had not fathomed. "What... what are you not telling me?"
"Oh darling, the question is what I am going to show you." Helena smiled that knowing smile she had every time she had information that would be both useful and exciting to the recipient of it. She watched Myka smile back at her, a smile displaying her subtle amusement at Helena's antics.
Once they reached the library Myka felt she both held her breath and let it out at the same time. There was always something about books that calmed her and excited her. Like the Warehouse that housed them, they were filled with endless wonder and possibility that could and often did lead to the most spectacular adventures. One thing that was different was that the only thing that restricted them was the imagination of the reader, as a bibliophile her imagination coming from the written word knew no bounds. One of the biggest perks of her job, besides saving the world on a daily basis, was the Warehouse library which put all known and existing libraries to shame. It contained not only all first editions of books ever written it also now held books that had been lost to the ages. Since it was hidden from the outside world many books that had been burned or destroyed during the fall of their respective empires were here and waiting to be read for the first time in centuries, or at least that is how Myka felt every time she found a book she had never heard of. Lucky for her, the Warehouse had an artifact that translated every language that has ever been written, it might have been a tiny magnifying glass that would have taken forever to use but Claudia had gotten a hold of it and upgraded it to a full sheet size. This of course had been approved by Artie after some very long talk about the dangers of unchecked and mishandled artifacts. Of course this was around the time Pete was also able to convince Artie to allow him to make a Pete cave somewhere in the Warehouse that would be safe and a secret place for him to get away to. It wasn't much of a secret when Pete wanted to show Myka the cool new recliner he bought for it or when he brought warm pizza down, making a basic smell map from Artie's office to the secret Pete cave.
"Helena I have been to the science section, I know all of the books here, there is nothing I haven't already read through."Myka said a little skeptical at what Helena could possibly show her in the library she hadn't already discovered or at the very least scanned through.
"Oh no darling, if I am correct no one knows about this besides myself and Nikola, which... if I knew him at all..."Helena said as she looked at all of the books in the science section of the library and finally found the one he had written on his theories of how electricity worked, "he would want to make sure his work... touched everyone." Helena said, pausing when she pulled on the book to open the secret passage way to a part of the library that not even Artie knew about. She smiled, as she knew that Nikola kept his word like he promised her he would.
"A few years before I was bronzed I was sent on a mission with Wolly to find any remaining books from the great library of Alexanderia. About sixty years before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered there was an epidemic of people up in Egypt that started talking in dead languages. We at first thought it was an artifact linked to the Tower of Babel."
1897
"They say that people are speaking fluently in languages that have been dead for centuries, so how can this not be the Tower?" Wolly inquired grabbing a newspaper from a small boy and handing that boy a bill that looked insignificant in amount.
He watched as Helena grabbed a slightly larger boy by the collar and put out her hand. The boy laughed and handed her a wallet then shock out of her hold and ran off.
"Do be careful with your belongings Mr. Wolcott, going through your entire wallet to pay for a paper may not be the best idea, I may have the mind to let the next thief keep their prize. And no Wolly. I do not think that this one curiosity is connected to that history quite yet. From the amount of stones we have currently in our possession Babel tends to lean more towards secretive communication gibberish then speaking in dead languages. I hypothesize that this is something new, old but new to our eyes. So for now, let us put the idea of a bloody stone to the side and increase our search shall we?" Helena said with a good amount of frustration bleeding through her words. She knew that she has never been this harsh to Wolly, but her patience as of late was all but gone and she had no time for his mind to play catch up.
"And why, pray tell, is that not a solid possibility?For all other possible leads ran bare, this is the most sound lead." Wolly stated, unwilling to give up on his own deductions.
"Fact one the story of Babel is one of the end of the human races inclusion. Where biblically told all of humanity was separated because of their drive to reach the heavens, where if you examine the newer testimate the God that they wrote about wanted humanity to unite under its name. So thus the Tower of Babel has more aspects of humanities exclusion traits then their inclusion tendencies. This curiosity does not, it holds history, knowledge that was long lost to the world, so its purpose is quite different then that of the Babel Stones. Even if the story of Babel was the supposed origin of the many different languages in all reality its true history was most likely lost during the many retellings of it, so much so that it became myth about how humanity grew to have different languages." Helena explained all of this while she studied the surroundings of the market and listened to the people.
All anyone could talk about was the story itself, panick was spreading, and if they did not find the artifact soon that panic would turn into a witch hunt for the item.
"We need to leave Wolly, quickly!" "But H.G we just got to the town, shouldn't we look around for clues, as you call them, wait...H.G. wait for me!"Wolly shouted as he tried to keep up, the market which they were walking through was full of people, and since the boy Helena had stopped he could barely see yet alone feel him lift his wallet from his pocket, he held on to his wallet as he ran. Just until he caught up to Helena.
"But H.G. how will we communicate with the people, I don't know about you but I am little rusty in my Latin. A part from a few church verses, I will be utterly lost."
"Well then it is a good thing Charley wanted to become a lawyer for a few years before he turned his interests to science. I love the law, she is like a perfect woman. She has a code, she is full of spirit, and is quite bendable when you get to know her." Helena said with a perfectly devious smile. She thought of all of her brothers interests, and even though he basked in her abilities as a researcher and dreamer, she knew that one of the main reasons why he seemed interested in those areas was for Helena.
1882
"Charles why are you so unfocused?! I mean all of the options father has provided you with and still you have no clear idea who you will be." Helena said, angry at her older brother who was born in a perfect position to do anything he desired.
"Sister..." He paused and looked around before he dragged his sister to the side. He knew he smelled of boose and women, but he also knew that if he did not say this now she would never truly know.
"There is one thing you must have always known, I am nothing but a leech to this family and society. I know myself, I also know that father's greatest disappoint was that you were not the male of the family. If I can give you anything it is all of those squandered interests of mine. For I know that you have never once been absent from my lessons, or snuck away with my texts. If I am to be a damnation to our family, dear sister, the one thing I will take pride in is you. For our world may not see your possibility, but I have been graced to precive your endless abilities and if I can feed them, then I will remain a student for enternity until your lust for knowledge is sated."
"That sounds nothing like your brother!" Wolly said in pure disbelief. "Oh Wolly we all wear masks, the clown is his facade." Helena stated absentmindedly. "Then what of yours Helena?"Wolly asked, but only saw a smile and the drawing of the paper lined up to the line of sight of the house in front of them.
2012
"The reports of the out break have all but stopped all over the world, and many of those infected have in fact began to show signs of massive improvement, but what's on everyones mind is how is this possible and what does it mean? Back to you Tom."
Helena watched the reports and examined all of the facts, they must of been successful but a change of this magnitude only signified one thing, that they neutralized the threat. Somehow she knew that this came at a price, one that she knew all to well when it came to time travel. She was surprised at the fact that for the first time in known warehouse hsitory, Helena was not surprised by Mrs. Freddericks, she heard her coming.
"Who?"
"Leena." Mrs. Freddericks said as a tear fell down her left cheek. "I have come for... to return the artifact to the Brotherhood."
"What was the cost?"Helena inquired, knowing that Mrs Freddericks was not telling her everything.
"The pocket watch, and a promise never to interfere with the Brotherhood again." "Let me return it to them. I will insure that they will never ask for more than this. And then I'm done." Helena stated, knowing it was time.
"You would leave the warehouse? After everything? You still have a lot to make up for." Mrs. Freddericks had seen this before, she just did not expect it from the inventor.
"You know why I must do this. I can't stay, it is time for me to... leave. While I still have my sanity. I will not be in a position to be that damaged again. You know as well as I do that I still have a lot to lose. There is nothing that I wouldn't do for anyone in the Warehouse but I cannot... I will not watch her die. I cannot survive it, the world couldn't survive it. It may break her heart, but it is better to break her heart by leaving then to lose myself to the darkness. I have already lost too much, I don't think I could ever be able to withstand another loss."
"And you can forget, let it all go? Endless wonder, access to all things history has forgotten about, the fullest library in all of history to date, and her. Can you let that all go for a normal existence? " Mrs. Freddericks asked, her voice full of the question presented to the agent. Helena just stood there and looked at her, just like the time the Regents took away her memories, all of her history came flooding to her mind's eye. Like watching an old movie she knew all of the lines to, she felt the familiarity from it and saw the pattern of pain, endless struggle, and death. She might not have been able to say it but this time Emily Lake was her choice to make.