Wasteland…
Part 2: The Future Chapter 8 The ChangeGrinder sped along the streets, flying back towards the crash site. No one in the town had heard about the blimp but that was going to change very soon; Grinder passed a farm on the way to the settlement and, in the rearview mirror, the blimp was very visible, it's back half protruding from the ground at an angle. Grinder had more than enough supplies that he had picked up at the small town's general store; providentially, there had been over two-hundred dollars in the truck when they had stolen it and Grinder suspected that there was more hidden somewhere but he'd worry about that later.
He looked at the speedometer and saw he was speeding at ninety miles-an-hour and a mental battle started in his mind; on one hand he could speed and get there sooner, which may make all the difference to one of their lives… And on the other hand he wouldn't speed so that no one would think anything of him; that might possibly buy them more time to get Alex and Connor patched up and away before authorities could get there…
Grinder kept speeding, hoping that he wouldn't run into any local law enforcement…
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Delia was talking to Fidget and Alex when Grinder returned with medical provisions for Alex and Connor; Delia had seen Fidget get her ass kicked by the Neo-Human but was too far away to help so she brought Connor over to her and Alex after the Neo-Human wandered away.
"Hey mates," Grinder said and then started distributing the equipment to Delia and Fidget; Delia extracted as much of the glass as she could and Fidget stopped Alex's bleeding in the head. Grinder had a distressing face as he watched Fidget and when she was done he said, "He's hemorrhaging which means that—what the hell?!?!?!" He interrupted himself when he shot a quick glance at Delia and Connor. Something was happening to them…
They were glowing…not only glowing, but parts of them were disappearing and then reappearing…, "Uh, mate, we got problems." Delia shouted Connor's name and rushed to him, then realized it was happening to her too. Connor opened his eyes and was immediately ready to panic but he kept himself under control; ideas were flying through his head as to what was happening but only one seemed to stand out…they were about to return to the future… "Delia," he said, "we're about to go back…," his voice was light and was barely audible…but she knew what he was saying.
Delia looked at Alex and almost screamed…the same things were happening to Team X-treme. She turned to tell Connor but his grim eyes were looking at them already; "What do we do," she shouted. As she spoke, wind suddenly gusted and sent sand up and around and—Delia felt something smack her in the back of the head and then start to grind into it; it didn't hurt but it felt…Delia blacked out…
Fidget screamed as blue swirls of light began to surround her, moving impossibly fast to the eye and then they started to slow down and…she was in nowhere; she was standing on nothing and the only thing around her was darkness and—Alex materialized, then Delia, lying on the black and the back of her head bleeding. Connor was suddenly there, crawling towards her and then—Fidget suddenly felt like she was being sucked down into nothing but then…a scene appeared below her, as if she were a few miles up and falling much faster than she should've been; as if she were being sucked toward the ground.
All of a sudden the ground was upon her and she landed gently on her feet but feeling very lightheaded…and…Fidget started to slump down and she tried to fight it but….her legs gave out and she fell to the ground, unconscious. Connor, remembering what happened last time did his best to fight off the horrible numbness that came after the first time he time-traveled but this time it didn't come; not at all… Connor got to his feet and then realized that his wounds were gone and the hit Delia had taken on the back of her head was gone…I'm never doing this again, Connor thought and then started trying to wake Delia.
It was night and the moon was new…they had landed in a trench, some kind of war trench that had been dug not too long ago; Connor had experience in this sort of thing so he knew…and then he realized he was in serious trouble… This trench was dug for defensive purposes; and it was relatively fresh too; couldn't have been dug more than five or six hours ago…when the Remnants built a trench like this one it's usually about…six or seven hours before an attack on the island.
There's about to be a huge battle, Connor concluded and then climbed a wall of the eight-foot deep trench to take a quick look around… He could see the ocean and that he was on one of the wasteland islands; most likely a Remnant one but what didn't make sense was that there was no one in sight…as he thought that, a light appeared in the mist over the ocean. Very faint and probably rather far but—another one. Then another and another until they started appearing like lightning bugs. Oh no, Connor realized that that was the attacking army and that… Sirens started blaring on the island he was on and suddenly people's voices were heard in the distance. The battle was beginning and Connor had no idea what to do.
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Grinder blinked a few times and suddenly his legs gave out from under him. He collapsed to the ground and tried to comprehend what he had just seen but the very idea of it was illusory; the group had just disappeared from his eyes after starting to glow and then blink in and out of vision, and having blue swirls of light fly around them…
And then they were gone…Grinder could only hope things were gonna be alright, especially his friends…
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The sirens awoke the group, which now consisted of Alex, Fidget, Connor, and Delia. They gathered in a circle in the trench and Connor estimated that they had two minutes before the trenches were going to be full of troops ready to shoot anyone they didn't recognize; "Okay, first things first, we've got to get ourselves to a detoxication facility; we aren't in suits and this air is contaminated. If you start to turn blue, you're going to die and there's no hope for you."
Fidget's eyebrows rose but she didn't say anything; without the other two noticing, she slipped her hand into Alex's and he gently squeezed her. Connor continued, "These wars are vicious; we need cover and we need it from both armies—," he paused and then spoke again, "Delia, watch the transports coming in from the ocean and see what army they are." She nodded and got up while Connor continued, "We need to find a way into this island's base."
"How do you know this is an island," Alex asked and Connor hesitated and then…, "Oh…no…everything could be different. This could be a completely different war that we're in the middle of; this air might not even be noxious… I don't even know what year we're in…" He sunk to his knees and mumbled, "Oh man." Delia suddenly was back and said, "It's China and they have something I haven't ever seen on the transports; come look." Connor got up and went to look at the transports; only one was out of the miasma completely and it was only, now, a hundred yards from the shore…and the peculiar thing about it was that it had a some kind of oddly-shaped device but Connor instinctively knew what it was; there had been rumors floating through the Remnant's army about a protonic-cannon but it was dismissed after awhile.
There was a light atop the cannon and that same light was on top of the rest of the transports. They were going to rip this island's army apart. "Oh man, oh man, oh man," was about all Connor could say for a few seconds…then he regained himself and looked behind him, at the island. A light had been switched on and it showed a flag, fluttering in the night's placid breeze; it was the Remnant's flag. "YES," Connor shouted, but then quickly realized that it didn't matter; if they had changed the future in any way, they might not be recognized and… "SHIT!" Nothing made any difference because they couldn't take chances; "Alright," Connor said, quickly getting into his military mode; he saw what looked like the beginning of a small forest at the end of the trench and he pointed and said, "Run! Follow me!"
They ran as fast as they could through the dark trench but when they were getting close to the small forest Connor looked behind him and saw soldiers appearing from the darkness inward of the island; the trenches were getting filled. "Faster," he panted and gave the run a hundred percent, hoping they wouldn't be spotted. They made it to the forest and ran through it until they found a big enough tree to climb and hide in. It was dark and the branches were black with burns from previous battles but the adrenaline and keen senses kept the group of four moving. It was only a few minutes after escaping the trench that Connor realized he had to be at least forty feet off the ground in the huge tree. He stopped and they stopped behind him and tried to catch their breath.
Connor told Alex, who was last, to climb back down a bit to a spot where part of tree branched into several other huge limbs. Alex did so and eventually they had a spot where they could all sit and watch the battle from afar; they were probably only a good hundred and fifty yards from the trench they had run from so they had a somewhat diminutive vision of the battle. The Chinese lined up their transports parallel to the shore and then started to commence; by that time the trenches had been filled and several turrets on the island were armed, not to mention the many snipers that were probably all over the place.
Connor was nervous; it was obvious that the war had still taken place and that meant that the mission he and Delia were assigned hadn't been accomplished (and that really pissed him off)…but if the war had still taken place, then that meant that the air was still venomous to the human body and that meant that they were breathing it… It smelled a little bit strange and actually tasted in the mouth a little bit…but there was nothing he could do about it.
There was silence in the air and the Chinese transports sat, unmoving but obviously ready to attack and commence with the plan; you see, the battles in the War of the Wastelands were always extremely complex. The slightest change in an island's geography and the whole attack strategy would have to be changed because the island isn't connected to the ocean floor. After all, how could the continent be blown into the little islands without the ground losing its foundation? The ocean slipped in after the nukes hit and, eventually, most, if not all of the islands were no longer attached. They were free-floating; which meant that the land could give way.
What made the strategies even more complicated was that some armies would just want an island to sink so they send subs to blow it from the bottom so there are—if the army is smart—underwater defenses too, such as mines, divers, subs, security nets and turrets. And there's always the air part of the battle; that too, is complicated because there are only two aircraft that've been developed to take the radiation in the air through the engines; fortunately, they're rare and can't do much but they can make all the difference in a campaign. The mêlée's the modern times were very strategic and problematical. You had to be extremely good commanding officer to even win a battle, let alone take over an island.
The silence was broken as the eleven of the fourteen transports all fired their protonic cannons on the shore. The shots were loud and the light seared through the defending soldiers and turrets; the transports must've been just barely out of range of the turrets, otherwise the hovercraft would've been eliminated. The island vibrated in reaction to the blasts and Connor hoped it wasn't going to sink; the Chinese commander was taking a serious chance in firing the cannons. The transports all propelled themselves toward the islands, taking fire from the armed forces against them. Connor guess that since the three of the transports didn't fire their cannons that the guns could only be fired once every so often. A turret that hadn't been blown fired at one of the transports and it was lit up into a ball of fire. The scene reminded Connor of an old vid he watched back before he time traveled; it was called 'Saving Private Ryan' and was a very monumental movie.
One of the last three cannons fired and the turret was obliterated from the island, as were its operators. There were six more turrets, if Connor remembered right and he did; the last two cannons fired their shots at them but four remained firing at the transports, one shot every fifteen to twenty-five seconds. Eight of the transports beached the shore and opened their doors, their troops rushing out and taking their planned locations. The island was now constantly lit up with quick bursts of firepower from all over the place.
Connor was making calculations and saw that if the Chinese kept up what they were doing, the battle was to be long. The Chinese were digging trenches! They were planning on staying for a while which could only mean one thing; they were expecting reinforcements…Connor's mind worked quickly as he started to figure out what the Chinese were up to. They must've heard of the TFP and want to take the island. But how could they expect to take the island, even if they were expecting reinforcements?
After dwelling on the thought for a moment, Connor knew what was going to happen. The Remnant's were going to exhaust their supplies on the force that was already on the island and then the reinforcements would come in and…annihilate the Remnants… Oh man… Connor started simulating things he could do to stop it but all of them involved possible encounters with someone that wouldn't recognize him…
Alex and Fidget were murmuring to each other as the battle started…Alex was saying, "…So…what do we do now?" Fidget shrugged and rested her head on Alex's shoulder, replying, "I think that that's up to Connor…Alex…"
"Yeah?" She smiled, knowing he couldn't see it; "Do you think that there's a chance that…you…you and me might…be worth something together?" YES, I SAID IT! I finally got it out. I didn't screw it up! Woo-HOO! Wait…what's he going to say? Her head rose and fell as Alex sighed a heavy sigh and whispered in return, "I've been asking that myself since we've been a part of Team X-treme." YYYYEEEEEESSSS!!!!!
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Ricky was on a plane flying back to Europe from the conference in NYC when he heard the news about Team X-treme being blown up in a supposed engine malfunction of their plane Big Air. About two minutes after he had heard the news, a stewardess walked to him and said, "Sir, you have a phone call; here's the receiver. If you'd like privacy, follow me and I'll take you to a small room."
Ricky looked at the phone and got up to follow her; his face was already pale and getting even whiter from the news about the now-deceased Team X-treme…they were his friends and his co-workers…they were his life, really. And now they were gone. Dead from an engine malfunction on Big Air…wait a minute, he thought. Engine malfunction on Big Air, with Grinder? "That's BULLSHIT," he yelled.
The stewardess turned and stared at him, as did everyone in his or her seats. "Oops, sorry…hehe…Let's go," he said to the stewardess and she slowly started to walk again…
They reached the room, which was actually just the stewardess's break room; she left him alone and he helped himself to some coffee before bringing the phone to his ear. "Hello," he said in a squeaky voice. "Ricky? This is Diana, from INTERCEPT. How are you doing?" Before giving him a chance to reply she continued talking, "I take it you've heard the news?"
Ricky slowly sat down in a chair at the small table and responded with, "Just a few moments ago…it wasn't a malfunction, was it?"
"No, of course not. In fact, we're completely positive that they're still alive. It's just a matter of where in the world they are and how they got there and if they're okay."
"That makes me feel great," Ricky lied, his voice saturated with sarcasm. Diana pretended not to notice and said in a hesitant voice, "Alex never mentioned…Dr. X still being alive…did he?" This hit Ricky like a brick; he remembered all to well what happened to Dr. X and his followers when they had fought their final battle. "No. Dr. X is dead, I watched him die…that was a…very bad day."
"…Yeah, whatever. Anyway, Dr. X's blimp was found; it crashed and there are no survivors in the area except…Grinder."
"GRINDER!! Ishethereletmetalktohimisheokayyou'renotlyingareyoubecau—," Ricky started talking a million miles an hour but Diana shut him up. "Shut up…damn… He's fine and he'll be there, back in Europe after we're done with him. He's told me to tell you that you can stay at his 'pad' and wait for him there."
"Oh, tell him thanks, okay?"
"Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I have to get back to work. Just giving you the news, Ricky." He was about to say thank you but a click interrupted him and the line was silent.
Author's Note
How's the fic coming? Better or worse?