Hey guys, I'm back with a new chapter. So yeah, I kinda got distracted, and another long wait was the result. But fear not, I have a new chapter here for you, so please, don't take my head.
The entrance to the Good Time Club was alright, I guess. It had kind of a gentleman's club/theater feel to it. What made it unnerving were the warning signs that all stated that anyone who wasn't a Finkton employee would be shot on sight. There was also another golden statue of Fink himself, but that was just weird without saying. Then there was the sign on the club itself.
'Sam Roberts audition today!'
"I'm liking this less and less," I said as we walked up to the door. We entered into a wide round room, with the words Good Time Club centered around a clock, which seemed to be off with a pair of extra hands. Maybe it was just me, but Fink seemed to have some kind of obsession with clocks, or time in general. It wasn't until we stepped a little further into the room that I noticed the pool of blood on the floor in front of a glass box containing a vending machine.
Looking above the box, I realized that the reason the clock had looked strange was because there was a mustached man in a Columbian uniform hanging from it's face. The word 'sacked' was written on a sign hanging from around his neck.
"Ah! Roberts, my boy! You know, the best kind of interview is the applicant doesn't know he's being evaluated! But, I've watched you since the lottery and I've got to say...you're a brute! And in times like this, I could use a brute!" came Fink's voice over an intercom. I looked at Elizabeth, who looked back at me.
"Oh for the love of...what do you want, Fink?" I asked.
"Why, labor unrest is coming, Roberts. Now...Fitzroy has the jungle all riled up," he said, and my eye twitched at his racial undertone, "and a man like me could have use of a young gunslinger like you."
"If this is what he does to his former employees, I don't think you should go work for him," Elizabeth said, looking up at the body. I have to say, I was inclined to agree with her. Keeping my revolver cocked and at the ready, we made our way up the stairs to what had to be the main room of the club.
We were on a balcony overlooking a large runway style stage and several booths. Off to our left was an unattended bar. Hanging over the stage were the words Fink MFG in large neon green letters. The fact that the place was deserted only served to put me on edge more.
"Let's find the gunsmith and get the hell out of here," I said. Above the stage, the neon sign went out and a screen lowered before showing Fink's face.
"Now, now, all I ask is that you finish what you started, Roberts. Wouldn't want to disappoint the other applicants!" Fink said, starting in on the intercom again. Oh, I so did not like the sound of this.
"Our first candidate is a veteran of Peking. Now, what's that they say about old soldiers?" I rolled my eyes as Fink chuckled at his own joke. "Frankly, my money is on you. He's something of an old hand at handling explosives. Only man I know who hasn't lost a limb while handling them...yet." A spotlight came on and focused on a curtain rising at the center of the stage. I holstered my revolver and unslung my rifle, prepared for whatever was about to come through.
Several men came running out onto the stage, along with a Fireman. They were all armed with machine guns or revolvers like the one I had. The Fireman looked up at me as I looked back at him through my rifle's scope. I fired the first shot, which he barely managed to avoid, the bullet skimming the edge of his flaming armor.
And then, all hell broke loose.
"FIRE CLENSES!" he screamed before he began lobbing fireballs toward me. The balcony railing I had been standing by was turned to splinters by the hail of gunfire which followed. I dove into cover behind a wall, holding the rifle straight up and down like a soldier at attention as I waited for an opening so I could return fire.
"Sam, look out!" Elizabeth yelled from her position of cover behind a table. I looked and realized that the men had fanned out and climbed up to the balcony with me. They were trying to outflank me, and I wasn't about to have that. Leveling my rifle, I picked them off one after another. I'd aim, a head would appear in my crosshairs, I'd squeeze the trigger, work the bolt, and then repeat.
The firing pin fell on an empty chamber just as another fireball exploded by the wall, tossing me to the floor. Scorch marks were all over the place, and I was starting to worry that this guy would burn the whole place down if he was allowed to. I needed to put him down, and fast. Sliding a new clip into the rifle, I stood up against the wall and waited for the next fireball to explode.
I came out from around the corner and threw a bolt of Shock Jockey. Instantly the flaming armored man locked up as electricity coursed through his body. I wasted no time in lining up the scope with his head and firing. My fingers flew nimbly, working the bolt again and again until the rifle was empty. The Fireman stumbled backwards a few steps from the onslaught before he exploded in a brilliant gout of flame, his entire body turning to ash in the process.
I lowered my rifle and took a breath I didn't realize I had been holding. We were alive, and unharmed. Well, at least for the moment. We weren't out of the woods yet. Knowing that, I loaded a new clip into my rifle. I was burning through ammo for it a lot faster then I liked, and would have to switch to my revolver soon.
"Surpassing all expectations my boy, keep it up!" came Fink's voice. I fought the urge to plug my ears and hum. This guy seriously did not know how to shut up.
"This young go getter is a former devotee of Lady Comstock, but without the old gal, they don't quite know what to do with themselves," Fink continued.
I bet it's a crow guy! Come on, twenty bucks says crow guy! Not now, conscience.
"Picked this one up at a job fair, for a song," Fink finished. A puff of smoke appeared on a large crate sitting in the center of the runway portion of the stage. The figure in black stood to it's full height and leveled his sword, pointing it straight at me.
Crow guy! Called it, pay up! I leveled my rifle back at him, lining up a shot with his head. Just as I pulled the trigger, he vanished in a puff of smoke and feathers. A crow's screech came from my left, and I turned just in time to bring my rifle up and block the downward swing from his sword. The force of the impact sent the rifle out of my grasp and skidding well beyond any point of recovery.
I back peddled, avoiding the wide arcs he was swinging with his sword in an effort to gut me like a fish. It didn't last as I tripped and landed flat on my back. The Crow appeared above me, his sword held high and posed to stab downward and end me once and for all. This was it, I was going to die, impaled by a wanna be klansman with a sword and a serious obsession with crows.
A bottle suddenly shattered on the back of the Crow's head, leaving him stunned and dazed. I saw my chance and took it, drawing my revolver and fanning the hammer as quickly as I could. The gun bucked and spat fire four times as I shot him in the gut at point blank range. He stumbled backwards before falling, landing spread out over the coffin on his back.
I got back to my feet, looking in the direction the bottle had come from as I broke open the revolver and began to reload it. Elizabeth was looking back at me from her hiding place, sending a nervous grin and a half wave my way. Say what you will, the girl had an arm, there's no doubting that. Snapping the revolver closed, I held it up and at the ready as the lights dimmed.
"Now, enough of the opening acts! Your true rival is an expert in the automita. Wants to replace all our security with machines. I'll give the old boy credit though; it would be fewer mouths to feed," Fink said as the crates on stage began to break open, revealing turrets. I wasn't overly worried, until the spotlight focused on the large crate that the Crow had appeared on top of. The wooden box fell apart, revealing a Patriot.
Oh come on! That's just not fair. I zapped the mechanical George Washington with a bolt of Shock Jockey before it could open up with it's chain gun. Next, I focused on the two turrets on the stage, hitting them both with Possession. Both of their warning bells rang, and they opened fire on the Patriot. When it's joints finally loosened up, the killing machine turned and began to fire back at the two turrets, leaving me to focus on the three flying turrets that had flown into the room.
They weren't overly hard to deal with, just more of an annoyance then anything. I finished them off quickly with a couple well placed shots from my revolver. As I reloaded, I heard mechanical steps clanking their way up the stairs. The Patriot's head was missing, and a good portion of it's torso was Swiss cheese, but it was still very much active.
"Sam!" I turned, just in time to see Elizabeth toss me my rifle. I caught it with ease before zapping the machine again. It locked up before it could open fire with it's chain gun, and I shot it a few times in the center of it's chest. The bullet's tore through the gears and other bits of machinery there, and the Patriot locked up before falling over under it's own weight.
"Congratulations, Roberts! You know, when your name was first passed to me, I wasn't quite sure you were the man for the job," Fink said as confetti fell from the ceiling and fountains of sparks shot from the edge of the stage. I just reloaded my weapons as we made our way down to the ground floor, on edge for another form of attack.
"But now, I can say with certainty that I was quite wrong," the tycoon continued. Oh my...seriously, did I need to draw it for him in crayon?
"I'm not interested in your job, Fink!" I yelled.
"Now, now, I know all about your little job for Fitzroy, but, do you really want to take her offer over mine?"
"Every day of the week and twice on Sunday," I replied without hesitation.
"Do you know how many people would kill to be head of Fink Security? You're a tough nut to crack, Mr. Roberts. A tough nut! But I promise you this: I will get what I want." There was a certain way his voice settled that left me on edge. He didn't sound like a childish brat who was determined to get his way, he sounded like a man who not only was willing to do whatever it took to get what he wanted, but often saw it done.
Elizabeth and I made our way back stage and into a stairwell which led down into the basement. Here, we encountered a pair of guards, a man and a woman, both wearing Columbian uniforms. They never saw it coming as I shot them both in the head without a second thought. I had to admit, it was beyond frightening just how cold I had gotten when it came to killing.
"Look, Chen Lin, cell number nine," Elizabeth said, pointing to a chalkboard with a list of names next to a list of numbers. Well, at least now we knew where to look. We turned, only to find that our way forward was blocked by a locked door. Elizabeth wasted no time in going to work on picking it.
"Are there people like Fink in the future?" she asked.
"They're not as bad as he is. Laws got put into place, things like that. Men like Fink are often remembered with disdain more then anything else," I answered.
"But there are still people like him."
"As long as there are two people on Earth, someone's always going to be trying to get a leg up on someone else." Elizabeth got the door open and we found ourselves in a room with a large incinerator. There was a sign, which designated this as the disposal room, along with a stack of newspapers, books, bottles, and signs for Chen Lin's gunshop.
The next room had an old style film projector and a viewing screen set up. Behind the projector was a raised platform with a chair and table with a few sharp tools on it along with a pool of blood. It didn't take a genius to figure out what they'd been doing in here. As I looked over the tools, the sound of the projector coming to life reached my ears. I turned and found that Elizabeth had turned it on out of curiosity.
Displayed on the screen was the grainy black and white image of an Asian man bound to a chair. He looked rather bruised and battered, despite the quality of the picture. I couldn't help but frown even more as I watched, nor could I ignore the feeling I had in the pit of my stomach. Something told me we were going to be lucky if we didn't have to carry the gunsmith out.
Opening the next door led into a long hallway. Before we could take a step forward, we were hit with the smell. The whole place just smelled rotten, like an open sewer and a pile of corpses on a hot day.
"What is that smell?" Elizabeth asked, reeling back a little and covering her nose with her hand.
"Ain't no sanitation department down here," I answered as I stepped forward to a box of old fashioned metal shackles and picked up a set.
"They treat them like animals," she said with horror and disgust. All I could do was shrug as I dropped the shackles back into the box before heading down the hall. The cells were large, yet bare rooms with a drain in the center and a matress or two thrown down in the corner. Each one had a body in it. All of them were badly beaten, a sign that the guards had probably gotten too rough with them.
"What could someone have done to get locked up in a place like this?" she asked.
"There doesn't need to be a reason," I answered coldly. Judging by the state of these prisoners, I was seriously not liking our chances with Chen Lin. Finally, at the end of the hall, we found it; cell number nine. Elizabeth went to work on the lock immediately, getting it open with ease.
As the door swung inward, I could tell immediately that this cell was different from the others. For starters, it was larger, much larger complete with an observation area over the main room and everything. There were steam pipes lining the walls and a fan in the ceiling. Overall, you could defiantly tell that this was where they put VIPs and other special people.
"Roberts, you're a lion," Fink's voice said over the intercom, "but you can't really blame me for looking after my own interests, can you? Now I know Fitzroy has come calling, but I think you'll find your business with her has come to an end. Lions walk with lions, Roberts, not hyenas!" Okay now I really, really did not like how that sounded.
We went down three flights of stairs total before reaching the bottom of the cell. The floor was a white tile, the kind you'd find in a lab or a bathroom. A light flickered at the entrance to the cell itself, which was dark in a very creepy fashion. The blood trail on the floor didn't help matters either, nor did the single light switch that was illuminated on the far wall.
"Let's get this over with," I muttered as I crossed the room and slammed my fist into the switch. I was hoping, praying, pleading that we weren't going to find what I thought we were going to find in here. A spotlight activated over my head, illuminating the center of the room.
"Sam.." Elizabeth said in horrified whisper. I turned to find a half circle of tables, a body slouched in a chair in the center of the tables, a massive pool of blood on the floor.
He swings and he misses. Fuck you conscience. I sighed as I stepped forward, ignoring the blood I was getting on my boots as I spun the body around. The gunsmith was so badly beaten that his face was almost unrecognizable. His eyes were black and blue, not to mention swollen shut.
"We're too late," I said in a depressed as his head slumped back from the motion of being moved.
"Fink. This is what he meant," Elizabeth said. I didn't answer as I turned the gunsmith's head one way and then another, looking him over. There was no doubt he was dead. The body was cold, he'd been like this for hours.
"So what happens now?" she asked. I sighed again as I placed my hands on my hips.
"I don't know. I suppose we could find another airship, let Fitzroy keep the First Lady," I answered. I was more thinking out loud at this point then anything. In truth, I didn't really have a plan anymore. Without Chen Lin, there was no airship, without the airship, there was no way out of Columbia. Unless you counted jumping, and I wasn't really in the mood for that.
"No," Elizabeth said in a tone of voice that made it clear things weren't about to change. While I had to admire her passion on getting to Paris, I could help but point out the obvious.
"Dead is dead, Elizabeth," I said.
"Dead is dead," a male voice said, echoing my own. I jumped and drew my revolver, aiming it at the twins who were standing in the entrance to the cell, illuminated by the light that had been flickering earlier. Robert was holding a coin aloft, although it was turned so that only he and Rosiland could see the two sides.
"I see heads," Rosiland said.
"And I see tails," Robert added.
"It's all a matter of perspective." I slowly lowered the gun, but kept eying the two.
"Okay...how does this help us?" I asked. The twins looked from the coin to me.
"What do you see from this angle?" he asked.
"What..."
"Dead," she answered.
"And this angle?"
"Alive."
"Sam, the body..." Elizabeth said. I looked from the twins to the body. The air around it was shimmering as a crack appeared in thin air. This was that same thing I had seen in the Tower, the portal that Elizabeth had opened to the actual Paris. Looking through the crack, I could see the room. The same room, only different. Chen Lin, the blood, all of it gone, replaced by crates.
"It's gone," I breathed.
"It was never here to begin with," Robert said. Realization dawned on me as I realized just what I was looking at. A doorway, a path to another world.
"Another Columbia," I said in awe.
"A different Columbia," Elizabeth stressed.
"The same coin," Robert started.
"A different perspective," Rosiland finished.
"Heads."
"Tails."
"Dead.
"Alive." God dammit I hate it when they talked like that.
"We have to go through...to this other Columbia but...how?" Elizabeth asked, directing the last part toward the twins.
"It's like riding a bicycle," Robert said.
"One never really forgets," Rosalind added.
"One just needs the courage to climb aboard," Robert finished. With that, the light above the twins flickered. Their forms flickered with the light, as if they were holograms being projected by it. Then, they vanished, leaving us alone with the dead body.
"Those two get creeper every time I see them," I said after a moment of silence. I doubt Elizabeth heard me, as she was so focused on the Tear.
"Sam, if we go through this...I don't know if we'll be able to come back," she said. I looked at the hole in the fabric of reality with almost childlike awe. Alternate realities, the multiverse, things like that had helped forge me into the sci fi fan I was today. And now, to be standing face to face with the reality of it? Consequences be damned, there was no way I was passing this up.
Snapping open my revolver, I replaced the spent casings before I snapped it closed again. With a practiced twirl, I returned the weapon to its holster.
"Superpowers, gunslinging, time travel, might as well add dimension hopper to the list," I said.
"But...what about you? Your time, your home?" she asked.
"I made you a promise," I said as I reached out and took her hand, "and that's something I intend to keep. Do it." Elizabeth threw out her free hand and grunted with effort. The Tear opened and then spread outward in all directions. As soon as it enveloped us, I felt like I was hit in the face with a sledge hammer. I fell to my knees, my hands clenching my head as I briefly went blind.
Images rushed through my head. The sound of classic rock playing on a radio, the bumping of a jeep as it passed over a rocky road, my cousin looking back at me from his spot in the driver's seat as he shook me awake. Then there was a loud cracking sound, the sound of screaming, and then, darkness.
I snapped my eyes open, finding myself on my hands and knees. Elizabeth was beside me, her hand on my back and her face filled with worry. Shaking my head, I realized that my nose was bleeding.
"That was...unpleasant," I said as I pushed myself to my feet and wiped the blood away with the back of my hand.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Ears are still ringing a little, but I'm alright. Did we make it through?" I asked, looking around the room. The changes that had been made to the cell were drastic. It wasn't a dark and gloomy torture chamber, but rather a well lit storage room.
"There's no blood, aside from, you know," she said, motioning to the drops that had fallen from my nose to the floor.
"Something tells me one dead gunsmith isn't the only thing that's changed," I said as I looked over the stuff that was in here. There were several weapons crates, all of them marked as having been seized to do the owners being Vox sympathizers. A mask of Abraham Lincoln's face with devil horns was on the desk, which I found a little strange.
As we started back up the stairs, I realized that I could hear shouting. It wasn't a guard or two, but rather the dull roar of a crowd. Getting back to the hallway, I realized why the noise was so present. The walls of the cells had been replaced with bars, making them actual holding pens. And they were packed full of people.
People of all backgrounds, all colors, young and old, all of them were on the bars and yelling. They all had red somewhere on them, be it a red sash or some red paint smeared on their clothing or bodies. As we walked back up the hallway, they began screaming at us. Some were yelling profanities, while others held their hands out through the bars, begging us to set them free. I took Elizabeth's hand and pulled her along, eager to get out of here as quickly as possible.
Back in the room with the projector, everything looked the same. The only difference was the noticeable lack of blood around the instruments of torture. The disposal room, on the other hand, had changed drasticaly. Gone was the newspapers and other bits of contraband. In their place were huge piles of Vox propaganda that were being shoveled into the flames.
"Something tells me Chen Lin being alive isn't the only thing that's changed," I said.
"I don't think you can change something like that and have everything else stay the same," Elizabeth said. I shrugged and we continued onward. It was as we were getting close to the back stage area that we encountered them, the two guards I had shot on the way down here.
The thing was, they weren't dead.
Blood was running freely from their noses and ears, and their forms flickered. The woman was standing, although barely, and clutching her head, while the man was laying on the floor and rolling back and forth.
"What do we do now?" the woman asked, her voice echoing like she was in some kind of mystical void or something.
"I HATE myself. I'm sick. SICK! SICK!" the man ranted, his voice also echoing.
"What...what's wrong with them?" I asked, taking care not to get too close to them.
"They remember," Elizabeth said solemnly.
"What?"
"Being dead." I looked at the two of them with a new found horror. They were trapped somewhere in between this world and the one we had left. The concept of being both dead and alive, it's something I couldn't even begin to fathom. It was because of that I raised my revolver and cocked it, aiming right between the woman's eyes. I couldn't bring myself to leave someone in that kind of hell. Before I pulled the trigger, I hesitated.
"Will they get out of it?" I asked.
"With time...maybe," Elizabeth answered. I looked past my gun to the woman I was aiming at. She was still mumbling to herself, holding her head and rocking back and forth. Based on her state, I doubt she was even aware of our presence. Finally, I eased the hammer forward and lowered the gun. I couldn't do it, not when there was a chance they could get out of this. In this hell I had found myself in where it was so easy to kill, it was good to see I still had restraint.
"Let's go," I said, leading the way up the stairs into the back stage area. We stepped out onto the stage, expecting the club to be empty. That is, until a spotlight shone down on us.
"What is going on here, Sansmark?!" Fink's voice roared over the intercom, "as head of my security, I suspect you'll want to find out how these two slipped past your men and WHAT THEY WERE DOING IN THE BASEMENT!"
"So I take it the job's been filled?" I called out. A few men in Columbian uniforms with clubs rushed the stage. I drew my skyhook and met the leader with the blades spinning, burring it in his shoulder. He screamed as blood sprayed before I kicked him backwards off the stage. Drawing my revolver, I shot his two companions down before they even had a chance to face me.
My shield flared as it took the full impact of a bullet. Turning toward the shooter, I found myself facing a man with a mustache and a cowboy hat using a carbine. I leveled my revolver and fanned the hammer, emptying the weapon into him. He fell backwards onto a table behind him, his body sprawled out with four growing patches of red all over his midsection from where I had shot him.
The whole club fell silent as I broke open the revolver and let the spent casings fall to the floor. Elizabeth stood next to me as I loaded new rounds, looking over the carnage I had just caused.
"Sam, that man you shot. In the other world he was the one on the clock," she said. I looked closer and realized she was right. That was the guy that had been hanging in the front of the club when we first got here.
"Poor bastard can't catch a break, can he?" I said as I snapped the revolver closed. Elizabeth shook her head, but otherwise stayed silent. With that, we left the Good Time Club and headed back into the Plaza. Going back the way we had come in was blocked, so we were forced to head back to the gun shop by going the long way around the square.
Unfortunately, we walked right into a Columban military check point.
Bullets were flying before I even realized what was happening. It was by sure instinct that I found myself taking cover behind a wagon as a hail of lead tore into the other side. Elizabeth found cover across from me behind a barrel. I unslung my rifle and waited, trying to get my pulse back under control while looking for a lull in the fire to take a shot.
"Sam, Flak Cannon!" Elizabeth yelled. I looked at her in confusion. Flak Cannon? We weren't on an airship, what did we have to worry about anti air for? I got my answer when I heard a high pitched whistle, followed closely by the wagon I was using for cover exploding into a thousand pieces. My shield failed as I was sent sprawling in the street, my head ringing.
Looking toward the source, I saw a man wearing a suit of armor heft a rather large gun and aim it at me. Swearing, I scrambled to my feet and ran for cover as he began lobbing grenades at me. Explosions tore through the street, doing more to disorient and scatter the enemy rather than hurt me. I found myself with my back pressed against a post, holding my rifle straight up and down as I took a few quick breaths before aiming.
The armored man had broken open his launcher and was loading it with new ammunition. I lined up the scope's crosshairs with the slit in his helmet and squeezed the trigger. His head jerked backwards, and blood sprayed out the bottom of his helmet before he toppled backwards and I ducked back into cover again, both proud and not believing the shot I had just pulled off.
Slinging my rifle again, I made a mad dash through the disoriented but recovering men. Reaching the armored suit I had just killed, I scopped up his weapon before swinging around and leveling it at the checkpoint. The solider closest to me recovered and took notice of me, his eyes going wide as he realized what I was aiming at him. Neither he nor his companions got a chance to react as I squeezed the trigger again and again until the weapon was empty. Explosions tore through the checkpoint again, only this time, they had causalities.
With an exhausted gasp, I let the launcher fall back to the ground. After all of this, Paris had better be worth it. Elizabeth rejoined me, and we headed into the gunsmith shop. The first thing I noticed when we entered was how quiet it was. Apparently I wasn't the only one, as she looked at me with a confused expression.
"Do you hear anything?" she asked. I shook my head before motioning up the stairs. Near the top, where the shrine to Buddha had been last time was a shine to Comstock. I paused as I regarded this. Elizabeth and I shared another look before we continued on up to the open area where the machines had been last time.
Only this time, there were no machines, just a single man acting like he was operating machinery.
I watched as Chen Lin stood there in the middle of an empty room, spinning an imaginary crank. His form flickered, and I realized that blood was flowing from his nose and ears. Just like the guards, Lin was being effected by the crossing somehow.
"This isn't good," I said as I regarded him.
"He's like those guards," Elizabeth said as she walked around him, eying him from different angles.
"This is...beyond my area of expertise," I said. Apparently, Lin must have heard me, because he suddenly jerked upward.
"Who are you? Speak up, very loud with all the machines!" he said in a loud voice.
"Uh?"
"Wait downstairs with Mrs. Lin, very dangerous!" he continued. I looked at Elizabeth, who looked back at me. We shrugged at the same time before starting back downstairs. At the Comstock shrine, we found a white woman with dark hair standing with her hands folded in prayer.
"Excuse me, maim. I'm looking for Mrs. Lin," I said.
"I'm Mrs. Lin," she said, looking up toward Chen Lin with a worried expession.
"No I mean..." I paused, remembering all the other things that had changed with the crossing, "Right. Your husband seems a bit out of sorts."
"They took Chen's tools. What's he got without his tools? Maybe if he could work again..."
"Mrs. Lin, can you tell me who took your husband's tools?" Elizabeth asked.
"Goddamn police," she answered bitterly, "took them and locked them up at the impound in Shantytown." As Mrs. Lin turned back to her shine, I shared a look with Elizabeth before nodding my head in the direction of the stairs. We started down them quickly.
"Is she right? Would having his tools back fix his mind?" she asked.
"Hell if I know. Either way without his tools we don't have guns," I said.
"So, Shantytown?"
"Shantytown." I remembered seeing the entrance to a place called Shantytown on the other side of the square. As I led the way there, Elizabeth slipped her hand into mine.
"Did you notice, Lin had a bloody nose," she said.
"Yeah, I noticed. Seems to be going around," I replied.
"I'm not so sure coming here was a good idea," she said. I gave her hand a squeeze.
"The plan hasn't changed. We get the tools, then we go to Paris," I said. She smiled and squeezed my hand back. After all, it was just a few tools. How hard could it be to get a few tools?
And cut. That's it for this time. Like I always say, hopefully the next one will be out quicker, but you know how that goes. Remember to read, review, make theories on Sam and what not, and I'll see you all next time.
