Chapter 28
Guest from the future
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Impossible Pictures, unless noted otherwise.
Chapter twenty-eight
Half a world away, in a yard lot behind the main ARC building, with most of the Centre's em-ployees observing it with clear curiosity.
"All right, people!" Connor's voice rang clear with authority. "Stand back and watch my very own, re-calibrated, time anomaly manifestation machine is ready to be put into practice! Assistant, flip the switch!"
The clone of Christine Johnson looked as if she would rather flip Connor the bird, but shrugged, and complied all the same. Immediately, a time anomaly appeared in the ARC's lot, and imme-diately a herd of cattle-sized animals, albeit armed with tusks rather than fangs, rushed through it in a powerful and deadly charge.
Unfortunately for them, this was no Canadian wilderness, but rather a quite controlled environment; more precisely, an environment controlled by people, some of which armed with rather heavy weaponry – much more heavy than the one currently possessed by Becker or by his cohorts down in mountains' lowlands – and now these weapons were discharging, turning the charging animals into, well, dead and dying ones in a matter of minutes – and then it was over.
But on the other hand, Lester's harangue was getting starting. "Connor Temple," he began in a voice that implied that this harangue will be a long one, "when you said you have re-calibrated your manifestation device, I really thought-"
"It's not my fault exactly!" Connor interrupted him, then paused and blanched somewhat. "I really do believe that I have re-calibrated it exactly! Those animals – those dicynodonts – they belong in the Late Triassic, they couldn't be there right now!"
"Unless they were gated in already," Danny said slowly. "Lester, remember you've told us that Jenny had e-mailed you about dicynodonts in the airport, and how they were a mistake that Helen was very unlikely to do? Well, maybe Jenny's new opponent has repeated the same mistake twice, or is trying to apply the old mistake in a new way. Maybe we should try this technique a second time and see what'll happen – Connor?"
Connor, meanwhile, had stopped listening to Danny and Lester, and was instead fiddling with his device, where a new odd light was blinking on and off. "You won't believe it, but we're being jammed!" he exclaimed.
"Jammed?"
"Jammed in that location in time and space," Connor elaborated.
"But, but how-"
"With a right satellite issuing the right frequency," the clone repeated instead, "it can be done."
"And you know it how?" Lester frowned in suspicion, but even he did not expect the reaction that followed - the clone of Christine launched a monumental hysteria:
"I just, I just do," she snapped, as her eyes began to glimmer with some suspicious moisture, "I, I am not a human, I am a clone, a clone, I know what's been input into me when I was made, made, and I know it, I know it – no more and no less!" she stumped her foot and bunched her fists, quivering like a bomb that was ready to blow.
"Easy, easy now," Abby gently grabbed her by the left arm, "it's okay, it's all right, Lester's like that to us ordinary people as well-"
"He has never dissected any of you!"
"Only literally... verbally is another matter. Why won't go to the ARC's cafeteria and have a cup of tea?"
"And keep quiet? And not talk or ask questions at all?"
"Sure, uh – what is your name?"
"It's Christine Johnson. I'm her clone."
"Right, Christine, let's go."
"...what has just happened?" Connor spoke few moments later, after Abby had taken the clone off the field.
"Your friend is missing female company, what with Sarah and Jenny currently absent," Lester said calmly. "Temple, is your device-"
"Yes, it is – for now," Connor said firmly. "Lester, I think I will need some additional assistance. Can we go in and talk?"
* * *
The woman was almost at her goal, when she was blocked – by another hulk, but this one was different, it walked on two legs, for a start, and its' overall body plan was also more... more humanoid – it appeared somehow different from its' kin, and its' eyeless and earless muzzle had somewhat more human proportions as well.
"Hello, young man," the woman smiled, despite the absurdity at calling the hulk a young man. "I see you have travelled far, and I haven't quite reached your final goal yet."
The bipedal hulk just stood silently, inhaling through its big nostrils, and finally spoke:
"I know you... I knew you, once. Why haven't you stayed on your star?"
"Young man, we both know that you're sane enough to not believe in your beliefs when you want to," Helen said firmly, "and now is that time. So, let's put the mysticism aside and talk – now, or a bit later."
"No," the hulk shook its' head, "why should we? I am my own man now, and you have no power over my life anymore – I am free from the voices!"
The woman shook her head. "I see that you have completely got detached from reality, my lad, and this isn't the final stop yet. So, I ask you one more time-"
"I thought that I have remembered you, but I have not. This form is suitable for this time, but it has its' flaws. Yet, despite these flaws, you're different from the person I have talked with during the Ice Ages, you're not her. Leave now, or I will take you down."
"Hmm, I think not – I actually think that this will be amusing, defeating you fairly," the woman smiled. "You may have reached the end of your evolutionary path, or so you think, but so have I – maybe. So, let's see how you're fairing at this point – on guard!"
The hulk lashed with its front claw, trying to rip the woman to shreds, but... she wasn't there, but further on to the left. Naturally, he repeated it with his other forelimb, but now the woman was further on to the right. For several moments the woman and the hulk did this bizarre game of shadow-boxing, and then the woman brought out her knife.
"Well?" she spoke up suddenly, "aren't you going to say anything witty?"
In reply, the hulk lashed out with its' claw, even faster than before – and the knife's blade had penetrated his wrist. That caused a lull in the action, as the hulk just stared with its' eyeless head at the result, and finally spoke in the same tone as before:
"This is impossible – you're not human, this isn't metal."
"What do you know about humanity nowadays, lad?"
"I know how to kill them."
"...I was speaking rhetorically, but thanks for responding so quickly with the pain."
"What can't be cured must be endured – if you are human, then die!"
The strike of the second claw much faster than it had ever been before – but the woman dodged all the same, ripping the knife from the wrist and slicing through the hulk's neck, dropping it in its' tracks.
"Well," the woman said, as she wiped her blade and re-sheathed it, "I am impressed – but that is not enough. Let's hope that the finished product is more impressive... and I have a feeling that it will be." She smiled and went on into the building complex that had been guarded by the aberrant hulk.
The corpse, lying in her path, didn't answer.
To be continued...
