Living in the Loop: Life # 15 – Mac and I
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to their respective owners.
2-1
It begins as it always began in a thousand of loops: a pair of people boating in a pair of Zodiac™ inflatable rafts over the waters of the Pacific Ocean doing their business.
A time anomaly opens deep within the selfsame waters. A prehistoric (or futuristic, but that is beside the point) carnivore emerges from it, its eyes aiming up and about.
It notices the inflatable rafts and swims upwards...
2-2
"Ms. Finch? Your afternoon appointment is here."
"Appointment? I didn't have an appointment..." Angelika Finch, a professional flamenco dancer (for the last two loops anyways) stopped as Mac Randall entered her room. "Oh. It is you. You're aware that this is a Loop, right?"
"Yes," Mac ground out. "And I see that you are as well."
"Oh?"
"Whenever you're... Looping, you are away from Cross Photonics. When you are not, you are there. Anyways, let us go and help Evan-"
"No."
"What?"
"There's a reason why I no longer help Evan Cross, Dylan Weir and your crazy crusade without a cause. Deny it if you want, but that is what I do. Now leave."
"Or what?" Mac glared. Angelika met his gaze without flinching.
"Have you yet been killed by a masterwork Spanish guitar?" she asked simply. "I'm nowhere as sure about firearms, but hand-to-hand combat and explosives – yes, I am stronger."
For several moments Mac and Ange continued to stare at each other, and then Mac looked away first. "Please, help me just once?" he suggested in a more peaceful tone. "I'll owe you once, and besides, last time I helped, I got eaten by a dinosaur-"
"No, dinosaurs lived on land-"
"I know. Last time, there was some sort of a sea monster and a smaller, more ordinary dinosaur that hunted on land, and that what ate me. Evan and Dylan appeared to have escaped, though... at least I hope. Anyways-"
"Ok," Ange cut her interlocutor off. "I'll help. But just once."
"I can live with that."
2-3
The knife was in Ange's hand, but hilt first. "Leave," she growled, "and I'll forget that this discussion has ever occurred."
"Look, you're making a big mistake," Lilah Morgan from W&H replied, wide-eyed. "All of your positive aspects aside, you're just-"
"Lilah." Unlike his associate, Menghiz ("no last name, just Menghiz") is completely unshaken; though he has pulled out a blade of his own – a triangular, vaguely shark tooth-like blade into the open as well. "Ms. Finch is giving us options, which is more than most of our failed clients, have given us. We are leaving. But," he gave Ange an amber glare from beneath his grey and bushy eyebrows, "Ms. Finch, keep your options open as well. We can benefit you too, believe it!"
2-4
The trio walked silently through the B.C. woodland, Dylan and Evan in front, Ange further behind.
"This is the last time I let Dylan sucker me into anything," Angelika was muttering quietly to herself: in this Loop she was an owner of a firing range rather than a CFO, but Dylan was able to talk her into being their backup all the same. Why? Angelika was not sure, though after several Loops where she was in a friendly (or rather more than friendly relationship) with Toby, she began to suspect.
"Look, the time anomaly must be here – we're standing practically on top of it!" Evan, meanwhile, was saying something else to Dylan as the trio stood upon the coastal cliff now. "Behold!"
And Dylan beheld. So did Ange, for that matter – a bay with the time anomaly glowing beneath the surface and a pod of prehistoric-looking whales (but still whales, not giant snakes) playing in the waves.
"This is actually quite lively," Ange heard Dylan comment, before something burst from the bushes behind them and grabbed Ange fully across the torso. Her gaze already darkening from the massive body trauma and her position also very wrong, Ange still could swear that her attacker looked like a giant hyena.
She also could swear that she heard the other two arguing if whether they should rescue her or help the prehistoric predator go back to its own time, but it was beside the point.
She was gone.
2-5
Mac's motorcycle stopped quite a distance away from the oil distillery; in fact, it was quite a bit of distance away from where Ange remembered Evan and Dylan stopping before going and seeking out this particular time anomaly. "Why?" she asked the Englishman. "Why stop here?"
"I want some space for manoeuvres, if worse comes to worse," Mac explained reluctantly. "I mean, there were dinosaurs, and giant snakes, and I don't know what other kind of misshapen monsters. I want to go a roundabout way first."
"Then you should've talked to Evan-"
"I don't have a convenient explanation to sell to him," Mac explained, "and furthermore, he really needs some time with Dylan – maybe an early start to their relationship will be good," he shook his head. "Say, in the Loops when you're aware-"
It was Ange's turn to shake her head. She had never been against a "yuri" relationship, and in the loops where she hooked up with Toby her life had been very enjoyable, but Dylan? "She and Evan just appear to have togetherness, you know?" she said instead.
"Exactly!"
"Evan who tries so hard to pretend to be a leader of man while in reality anyone with a stronger personality can lead him around with a minimum of fuss, provided that he doesn't confront Evan head-on, and Dylan who fulfills these requirements more than adequately, while full of fire and bile for a GreenPeace crusade of her own," Angelika continued blithely, ignoring Mac's glare. "Mind you, Brooke was better."
"Brooke?"
"Evan's wife. Remember her?"
"Ah," Mac paused. "I never met her. What was she like?"
It was then that they came across a giant scorpion.
2-6
The trio walked silently through the B.C. woodland, Dylan and Evan in front, Mac further behind.
"This is the last time I let Evan sucker me into anything," Mac was muttering quietly to herself: in this Loop there was no Ange, so Cross Photonics weren't as flourishing as they usually were, and only Mac's overall loyalty to Evan – and the fact that it wasn't his first Loop – kept him on board with Evan and Dylan.
"Look, the time anomaly must be here – we're standing practically on top of it!" Evan, meanwhile, was saying something else to Dylan as the trio stood upon the coastal cliff now. "Behold!"
And Dylan beheld. So did Mac, for that matter – a bay with the time anomaly glowing beneath the surface and a giant prehistoric monster, looking vaguely like a shell-like sea turtle with a head of a giant crocodile, lounging next to it in the water.
"This is... this is horrible," Mac heard Dylan comment, before something burst from the bushes behind them and grabbed him fully across the torso. His gaze already darkening from the massive body trauma and his position also very wrong, Mac still could swear that his attacker looked like an "ordinary" carnivorous dinosaur.
He also could swear that he heard Evan go into one of his flashbacks about "the day when his Brooke was gone", but it was too late.
Mac was gone as well.
2-7
The scorpion raised its stinger high and issued a warning.
"Um, shouldn't this come at a later date? You know, when we had to save Toby and you actually began to work for the local army guys, and-" Mac began to speak and then changed his mind. "Never mind. People stay the same, the animals and vermin just appear to change from Loop to Loop."
"Precisely," Angelika nodded as she cut-off a heavy stick with her knife. "You want to drive it off or should I?"
"Don't you have a gun for this sort of an occasion?" Mac asked less dryly than she would expect to.
"No, actually," Ange confessed. "I don hand-to-hand combat and explosives. You want a firefight? Do it yourself!"
The scorpion struck. Instinctively, Ange blocked the stinger strike with her impromptu staff – and the scorpion's stinger went right through the wood, before the rest of its tail jerked back, pulling the weapon from Ange's hands.
The scorpion's tail whipped back and forth once more... and it became evident that the stinger became stuck in the wood: the scorpion had essentially neutralized itself.
After several more thrashings back and forth it became evident that the scorpion was not going anywhere, or at least it was not attacking anyone.
"...You want to carry it back to the time anomaly and release it there?" Mac said after a while. "I don't like them because it – or its' cousin – did sting Toby, but it is just a spider with a tail after all. Kind of pointless to treat it like a human being..."
Angelika looked Mac straight in the eye. After several moments he looked away first.
Together they picked up the scorpion and began to carry it down to the coast.
2-9
The dinosaur – a raptor of a large size – was in trouble. It was trapped in the Silurian, on land – and it was a time when nothing really could live on land, especially nothing as big as a raptor. Between the radiation, the thin atmosphere and the lack of food and fresh water it should have been dead and gone a long time ago – and yet it was not. It was emancipated, possibly with tumours, exhausted, and yet it crawled on.
And then it reached food – a giant Silurian scorpion moulting, its shell still soft and vulnerable, even to a raptor that lost most of its teeth. The dinosaur tore into the arthropod, swallowing it almost whole, in one gulp.
And then it smelled water – fresh water from a small pond nearby. With its strength somewhat renewed the raptor crawled to the pond, leaned to drink...and fell in.
The slow and gentle current took the weakly struggling dinosaur into another time anomaly, alongside several large jawless fish that came to this pond to breed.
2-10
"No," said Mac.
"I can't believe it," said Mac.
"Just no," said Mac.
"I hear you," Ange nodded thoughtfully. "Oh yeah."
"The day thou giveth, Lord, has endeth," was playing loud and clear in Ange's mind as she stared down at the remains of Evan and Dylan, with their killer swimming in the water not far from them – a giant prehistoric squid, easily as big as an average school bus, if not bigger, but clad in a shell.
Mac growled and began to wade.
"Wait," Angelika grabbed the Englishman by an arm, before throwing something that appeared to be a sticky ball of some sort at the prehistoric squid. Her aim was true and the ball was sticky, so it stuck.
"Now what?" Mac growled.
"Here," Ange shrugged as she gave her companion a remove detonator. "What? Explosions expert here!"
"Good point," Mac nodded and pressed the button.
The explosion was deafening.
"...Evan wouldn't have approved," Ange said after a while, when it stopped raining prehistoric squid and the remains just sank.
"Evan... you're wrong about him, but he does have more enthusiasm than common sense. Dylan's just as bad," Mac shook his head. "In my next Loop I'll do it differently." He paused. "Look. Either I owe you or we're even, but you want to stick around and help me deal with the time anomalies 'cause Evan's gone for this Loop, and I'm not sure how I'll be able to handle it with just Toby and me-"
There was a noise behind them. The pair looked, and sure enough, the giant scorpion was gone, having finally freed its stinger from the wood and immediately fleeing into the forest.
"Fine, but if we capture it – we're keeping it," Ange said firmly. "I think that I got something of an idea how to use it..."
End of Life #15