Wasteland…
Chapter 7 Changing the FutureConnor awoke to intense pain all over his body. He groaned as he sat up and started to take in his surroundings. "This is great," he murmured. He was in a cell, very similar to a jail cell. There was one of the freaky-lookin' things outside of the cell and Connor immediately had an idea.
The…thing was leaning up against the bars of the cell; there weren't any keys on him but there was some kind of gun around its waist. Connor took off his shirt and did his best to roll it into a weapon…well, sort of a weapon. He stopped as he remembered what happened after they had come back from a war…they'd all fight in the locker rooms with towels rolled up. Sometimes they'd take more wounds in those victory fights than they would in the war.
Connor's original plan was to choke the guard with his shirt but the memory of home brought on another one. They watched holovids in the future; holovids were a step up from DVD's and were actually very popular after a skirmish or a hard training phase. Connor remembered a comedy with the hilarious Jackie Chan…it was called something like, Sunny Noon…or…Shanghai Noon! That's what it was. Connor remembered what Chan had done to get out of the jail cell and… If a wet shirt can't break, then the guard couldn't break it while I was choking him…
Connor looked up at the guard and quickly 'expelled waste' onto the shirt. Only after he had started to pee did he notice a security camera looking at him. Oh…that sucks. Connor finished anyway, and when he was done, he picked up shirt and said, "Aw that's nasty." The guard started to turn around and Connor dropped to the floor and made it look like he was sleeping, having a dream and moving around in it or something… After studying him for a moment, the guard turned back around.
Connor tranquilly got up and walked over to the sentinel. Connor got the shirt ready and, in one quick motion, whirled around in front of the freak and grabbed onto the other side of it. The creature immediately started struggling and, much to Connor's surprise, almost got away. It pushed against the wall of bars and Connor's face smashed into it. "AAA, you shit," he yelled, and then fluidly jumped up and put his body perpendicular with the floor; he was in the air, his legs pushed up against the bars, holding the guard back.
Connor heard the beast starting to choke and wondered how much more he could take. Come on Connor, keep it going, keep it going keep it going, you can—, "AAA," he yelled as freak stopped struggling and fell to the floor. Connor landed flat on his back, knocking the air out of him. He looked up at the thing; it was dead, it's body still. Score, Connor thought as he got back up to his feet and walked over to the dead body.
He reached over and pulled the gun from the holster and fired it at the monster. It was a low-powered laser gun, probably enough to go through the bars of the cell. Connor burned his way through the bars and, in a minute, was out of his cell. My shirt, he remembered, then, ugh, never mind.
I silently made my way down the hallway, stepping lightly. There were more cells and as I passed one, I saw movement inside of it; I turned to look and saw Alex. "Connor," he whispered, surprised, "I thought I heard you doing something but then I heard you—''
"Yeah, yeah, shut up." Connor fired the laser gun at the bars and they started melting; in a minute, Alex was free and they were quietly making there way through the blimp. Connor asked, "Where are we?"
"I think we're on the blimp that Tempest built for Dr. X, but I'm not sure who's it is anymore, or who's here. We need to get Grinder and Fidget first, if they're here." God, please don't let anything happen to Fidget, Alex silently prayed. Connor was thinking, I hope Delia is alright but we need to get her first, or the future could change beyond reason…
Alex and Connor heard a voice echoing down the hallway and they approached the room it was coming from, waiting outside the door. "…Hoping it will be finished in two weeks. Action Man will no longer be a problem when you command me to kill him. I have him—''
Another voice, old but obviously agitated yelled, "Finish him NOW! The Council cannot take much more of his interference. If he destroys this project, there will no longer be any; we'll simply launch the 2006 Project before we're prepared for it. Perhaps our luck will benefit us later."
Tempest's voice replied, "Yes, Xynan*; Action Man will be dead in a matter of seconds." Connor heard a whirring noise and then Tempest's footsteps toward the doorway he was behind. Think fast, he thought, and then quickly stepped several feet from the doorway, the direction that he and Action Man had taken was now facing them.
Tempest entered the hallway, his back to them. Connor didn't hesitate. The gun came up and then—TSEEEWW! Tempest's head was all over the walls.
Alex was a little shocked at seeing Tempest dead before him but he hastily recovered. They walked into the room that Tempest had just been in; it was the command deck of the blimp. Above them, hanging like a chandelier, was Tempest's weather control device, and around the room were various computers and noticeably problematical machines.
"This way," said Alex and he jogged to one of the monitors and started typing. "The Council of Doom has a satellite network of old satellite's that some countries don't use anymore; they use them to get Intel and monitor their agents." Alex typed for a few more seconds and then a map popped up on the screen, a big red dot slowly getting magnified on. It started out as a map of the world, then it zoomed into the United States, then it just went straight into a region in the state of Montana and pass that, it went to fast to tell.
The satellite showed the image of a large diesel cruising down the highway. A red, human-like figure was inside the back, along with two others. "That's Fidget and Grinder, and, hopefully Delia," said Alex. "How'd you do that," asked Connor. Alex showed him the simple technology and Connor immediately understood how the keyboards and computers worked. The group of three were around fifteen miles from the blimp's location, on the other side of a mountain; Tempest must've been pursuing them and was rather clever to put a mountain between himself and the truck; they wouldn't be able to see him coming.
"So what's the plan," Connor asked when they were finished.
"First, we have to somehow rescue the other's. Then we're going to have to destroy the army of Neo-Humans. After that, we need to figure out where the Council of Doom is and overthrow them."
"Then let's do it," Connor replied, typing in the calculations for their new destination. Alex halted him, saying, "No, we can't take this blimp there; this thing is full of Neo-Humans…," Alex's face lit up as an idea came to him, "…we can find an escape ship on the blimp, destroy the blimp and meet up with Fidget and the others!"
Connor requested the computer bring up emergency plans and it brought up a number of displays about where to go and—there were two ships! A cargo one carrying all the ships computers and an escape one that could seat three people…an notion appeared in Connor's mind and he spoke, "You fly the cargo plane since I'm not familiar with technology these days and I'll take the one for three; if I crash, you'll still have all of Tempest's and the Council's information." Alex agreed and then told the computers to activate a self-destruction sequence for four minutes.
"Password is required; please speak it now," the computers replied.
Alex froze and tried to think of a password that Tempest would have. Connor looked at him with dismay; what happens if we don't get the code word right? Alex said, "Action-jock sucks." The computers made a whirring noise and a few beeps were heard…then, "We're sorry, that's incorrect. WARNING, WARNING!! INTRUDERS ON BRIDGE, INTRUDERS ON BRIDGE!! SELF-DESTRUCTING SEQUENCE ACTIVATED! TWO MINUTES UNTIL CRASH LANDING!!"
"Oh shit," Alex said, then thought, wait a minute… Then he laughed and smiled, yelling, "Let's get outta here!" Connor had been looking at direction to where the escape ships were so he led the way through the blimp. They ran past Tempest's dead body and past the cells they had been in, and then they reached the cages where the Neo-Humans were. They were in a shipment bay, all of them in cages and cells, roaring at the sight of Action Man and his friend. They tried to break through the bars and cages they were in but it was obvious that the barred enclosures were made out of extremely hard metals; the Neo-Humans couldn't move them and it really pissed 'em off.
"30 SECONDS UNTIL CRASH LANDING!! LESS THAN 20 BEFORE ESCAPE IS POSSIBLE!! RECOMMEND ESCAPING SHIP NOW!!" Alex Mann almost laughed; it was obvious that after Dr. X was defeated that Tempest had reprogrammed a lot of things about the ship; for example, it had a dire sense of humor and Alex never thought Tempest had one. Alex and Connor kept running and they finally reached the escape ships. Connor jumped into his while Alex got his engine going; "Good luck," Alex yelled as his ship started to lift off the ground; Connor couldn't hear him over the screaming engines. Connor activated the ship's computers and engines and gently took hold of the direction control, otherwise known as a joystick. The bay's doors opened to reveal land below them, rushing up fast.
That got Connor going real fast; he slammed on the 'speed increase' button and, just before he left the blimp, he faintly heard the computers say, "YOU'RE GOING TO DIE; LESS THAN TEN SECONDS LEFT. GOODBYE ACTION-JOCK!" Connor laughed, then focused; the altitude he was at was 2000 feet and dropping swiftly. He pulled back on the joystick and the plane started to even itself out but it was going fast enough. The second Connor wasn't under the blimp anymore he pushed the 'speed decrease' button and his attempt to go up was a lot more successful; the plane was parallel with the ground at 26 feet…and before Connor could react, his left wing clipped a huge pine tree.
Connor went into a spin and tried to pull up some more but it only resulted in a faster spin; the G-forces were getting to his head and he was starting to black out when some part of the plane hit another tree and—CRASH! The plane bounced off the ground and Connor opened his eyes just in time to see a hill in front of him before—
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Alex watched in horror from a few hundred feet away; Connor's aircraft was going at least two hundred miles-an-hour when he slammed into the hill…Alex's plane tilted and he flew on… When the smoke cleared, the plane wasn't even visible; no telling how deep into the hill it had gone and—
There was a huge explosion and the shockwave crashed into the Alex's plane like a wrecking ball; Alex flew from his seat and just as his body crashed into the control panels, another explosion and shock wave occurred and Alex was launched from the front of the cockpit back to the bay of the small cargo jet. He tried to get back to his feet and his hand instinctively reached for a wound on his head; surprising him, his hand felt the soft, mushy wetness of flesh and he realized his head had been busted open. Oh shit, he thought and tried to reach the cockpit but he kept on blacking out for a split-second, then waking up and then blacking out and then…
In a few more seconds, Alex managed to land/crash the plan, the impact violently sending him to the back of the plane again, causing him to lose consciousness altogether…
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"What the hell was that," Fidget asked when she and Grinder heard the first explosion. Before Grinder could even shrug his shoulders in lack of knowledge, there was another one, even more louder than the first. "Damn, what the hell was that?!" Delia stirred in her sleep but stayed in the deep sleep she had been in…
Grinder pulled the truck that they had stolen over to the side of the road and got out to look around. It sounded like it had been far but extremely powerful… "There," he said when Fidget had met up with him, and pointed to a huge column of smoke that was arising from the opposite side of the nearby mountain; "Man, something big had to've something like that," Grinder observed, and then continued, "I think we oughta check it out, eh mate?"
Fidget raised an eyebrow and tilted her head and said, "Well…yeah, we ain't got anything better to do; as long as I have my camera!" Grinder smiled and then looked back at the diesel and thought, better look at the map for roads around or over the mountain…
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The blimp was mostly destroyed but the part of it that remained integral was standing at a 90-degree angle from the ground, like a fallen tower.
A few hours later, Fidget was running towards the wreckage of the blimp, screaming Alex's name and expecting to find his dead body somewhere in the debris. Delia was walking numbly among the site, already knowing that Connor was dead; she had known the second she had seen the crash site from the mountain that Connor was dead…it was obvious to her but she kept silent, letting the other two have their hope… There was the main crash site, which was spread out over a mile, full of debris and metal all over the place; then Delia had noticed that there was a small, tiny column of smoke arising from some spot on a hill… She still had to think about it until she saw another small plane, still intact, in another area too far from the main wreckage to be a part of it and then it hit her; Connor and Alex had been taken and there were three plane crashes…
Delia knew that Connor would've escaped by whatever means necessary and she figured that he'd let Alex take the more important plane and if one of the planes was cargo one, like the third one she'd seen…
It was now that the tears came, when she had found the hole in the hill; she was crying unbelievably hard when she had looked down the hole to see…the other side of it and a tiny plane in the distance. She cried out and jumped to her feet and started sprinting to the other side of the hill; when she reached the top of it, she saw what was left of the plane and her hope was diminished greatly. The wings were nowhere to be seen and the cockpit was…hardly even a cockpit…and, as she ran closer, she saw a tanned arm hanging out the side of the cockpit, little streams of blood running down and dripping off of it.
Delia screamed Connor's name and didn't stop until she reached him…the windshield had splashed its shards all over his body and blood seemed to be everywhere but it was the very sluggish, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest that caused to smile and cry in a sudden wave of relief and happiness. She started to bend down, to pick him up and then realized that that could be lethal to him…there's too much blood everywhere so I know he needs blood but I can't… She concluded that she had to get him out of the cockpit.
Delia unbuckled him and very tenderly pulled him from the wreckage, carrying him back to where they had parked the truck; there was a first-aid kit that they had prepared on the way to the crash site. She was getting blood all over her but it didn't matter but something hit her as she was softly carrying Connor's body to the diesel truck, which was still a half-mile away: I didn't know I cared for him this much…then, I didn't know I…actually loved him… And she cried tears of joy at the discovery she had found…
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Meanwhile, Fidget and Grinder had found Alex's body and awaken him; he was way too weak to talk or communicate in any way but Grinder did a quick check on Alex and concluded that Alex had probably suffered a concussion (it was rather obvious with the gaping whole in his head), that he had lost a lot of blood, and that he needed some water as soon as it was available.
"Okay, Fidget," Grinder said, "You stay here with Alex and don't move him, no matter what, don't let him move, okay? I'm going to the nearest city and getting supplies with the money that was left in the truck. I'll be back in less than an hour. Just talk to him, and keep him awake, 'kay mate?" …And with that, Grinder took off for the truck, running as fast as he could…
Fidget watched him run for a few seconds and then turned her face back to Alex Mann, the one she loved. She cradled him in her lap and spoke to him softly, comforting him and telling him everything would be okay, even though she had clandestinely lost hope…
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Delia was bandaging Connor's wounds when Grinder was suddenly upon her and climbing into the truck; "You alright, mate," he breathlessly asked before starting the engine. "How is he," he inquired again before she could answer and Delia spoke without taking her eyes from Connor's, "I truly don't know."
Grinder nodded in understanding, then drove off, leaving her in the dust, alone to cry and soak Connor's shredded shirt with her tears…
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Fidget heard some footsteps in the dirt and raised her voice, "Delia?" In reply, Fidget heard a muffled grunt and her eyebrows arose with fear, her thoughts: no, not now. A lone, bleeding Neo-Human stumbled past the opening in the plane and walked by without looking at Fidget and without incident.
Adrenaline was flowing through her faster than her heart could ever pump blood; what if it comes back, she thought with fear…and as if in an answer to her thoughts, it came stumbling back into view. It's eyes looked at Fidget with a look of…hunger… It moaned and started towards her, and it stopped suddenly, it's eyes locked onto Alex. It lamented again and started walking towards Alex's body, like a zombie with it's arms outstretched and reaching for Alex. "NO," Fidget cried out and grabbed a nearby piece of scrap metal; she got to her feet and swung it at the Neo-Human with ferocity she didn't know she had in her.
The metal whacked the Neo-Human on the side of the head and it crumpled at Fidget's feet. She stepped back in disgust, and then reached down to move Alex away but remembered Grinder's words; …no matter what, don't let him move, okay…
So Fidget overran her pride and started to pull the unconscious Neo-Human away from Alex when it suddenly reached up with a fist and slammed her face like a brick. "AAA," Fidget screamed out in pain and fell back on the ground, her nose gushing, literally gushing blood all over the place. Before she could get to her feet and counterattack, the freak of Dr. X kicked her in the stomach and she flew into the air, only to land flat on her belly in another second, the wind knocked out of her…
The Neo-Human then grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her off of her stomach and onto her back, the thing wanting to hear her scream in agony; Fidget somehow gathered enough will over the pain to focus a kick on the Neo-Human's left leg.
The leg broke under the intensity of the kick and the creature howled in pain and started to run away; it forgot about the pain, it just knew that it had to get away before the girl killed him…
Fidget was too beat up to chase it and finish it…