Chapter 10
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.
The underground hideout of Alexandra, her minions and Ethan was not as uncomfortable as Ethan partially expected it to be: it was not mouldy, with tails of earthworms' sticking-out everywhere; nor was it barren, with nothing to sit on and nothing to eat, but it was comfortable enough... or so it was.
The re-appearance of two minions hurt and disgraced in the first fight with the ARC field team had changed that. Their new tale had rattled Alexandra – for the first time since their return to the twenty-first century.
"The Anathema are here? Here, and they brought allies?" Alexandra ground her teeth. "That's not good. When we came here tracking Vigdis' half-breed daughter, I did not expect to encounter more faces from our past. Yes, Ethan?"
"Just wondering, how it is going to change our goal?" the anarchist turned time traveller shrugged. "Are we talking about more mutants?"
"Homunculi," Alexandra shook her head. "Your descendants have created them, or would create them, in test tubes to be their servants, but they escaped... apparently to this time to pursue their own agenda. And yes, Ethan, they may have never been friends of Vigdis or any other mutant leaders, but they're no friends of us and my mother either."
"I see," Ethan nodded calmly. "Well then, Alexandra, while bolo knives, colts and repeating rifles are cool, I'm going to use something more this century the next time we strike." With these words he reached into his backpack and pulled out, among other things, a Webley revolver and a pair of self-made bombs. "You dig it?"
Alexandra nodded, grinning slightly. You could say many things about Ethan, but one thing was for sure: he never got depressed or downhearted for too long.
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"That was a merry chase, with 'merry' in a more old-fashioned usage of the word," Jess muttered, as Becker and Matt released the angrily chattering Rex into his containment unit, "and I seriously hope that we won't have to do that again in a while. Wonder what's gotten into him?"
"Me," April replied with a surprisingly humourless smile. "He doesn't like me, and he's correct. I should not be here. He's missing Maitland."
Jess took a good look at the other woman. Although she had initially been working for Prospero™ as well, she had never really encountered April at all – the two had been moving in different circles, after all. However, rumours about April had reached Jess, and none of them had mentioned anything about the blonde's low self-esteem, and if there was anything that Jess did not like in other people, it was low self-esteem.
"Now stop it!" she said firmly. "Yes, we started off on a wrong foot, and what had happened with Abby will remain with us for a long time, but now it is time to mend bridges, start new ones, and – and recover," she added, remembering that she was looking down at April because the latter was in a wheelchair, her legs still bound in bandages and plaster of Paris. "Seriously, we don't hate you, and we can be friends, if we try."
"Friends?" April almost tasted the word, Jess could see it. "Friends... never really had any friends, never really had anybody. Never knew my father, and my mother wanted a son, so I was a disappointment as soon as I was born – never figured out why she kept me around all these years at all. Her... business associates followed suit. Then... she was gone, and I was free to live my own life – and I had no idea what I wanted to do. So... I ended up coming here and working at Prospero™ - working for Philip. I think he was my first true friend," April twisted to face Jess directly. "I don't know you all that well, and I don't know how to make friends very well either. But I'm going to try."
"Thanks," Jess said weakly, realizing that befriending April will not be easy. "We're going to try too. Want to come over to my place tonight?"
"Is it wheelchair accessible?" April asked matter-of-factly.
"Okay, this is going to be trickier than I thought."
"Sorry."
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"Let me get this straight," Abby said, semi-incredulously, "contrary to what Matt told me and the others, the future had more than just humans and mutant insects in it?"
"Well, obviously – you said before that the ARC had encountered plenty of creatures from the future," Helen nodded in reply.
"Not that – I'm talking about the ordinary people, the mutants, the future predators, your race," Abby nodded to Caroline, "and everyone else. It may or may not been a flourishing civilization, but to think that Connor and Philip had destroyed it, when `New Dawn's' time anomaly machine got activated is terrible!"
"Yes, we're living in a giant snakes-and-ladders game and me and mine just got a big lucky break," Caroline nodded, watching Abby warily. "So you're not going to hold it that I and mine aren't human?"
"No," Abby said firmly. "Whatever problems we're going to have aren't going to come from that, you can be sure of, and speaking of problems, any ideas what's causing mine?"
"Yes, actually," Helen nodded brightly. "You see, I got a plan."
End chapter 10
