"What are we going to do?!" Margot cried as something was knocked against
her head. She heard a small click as her earpiece was disconnected.
"Drag Gomez over to the side. We need to find that ceramic she had. It's the only way to call back the machines." They dragged what remained of Gomez's body over to the place where they had been hiding, and luckily, with the excitement of battle going on, were unseen. Evelyn began to search the body for pockets, which may have been used to hide the ceramic.
"Found it!" Margot cried. The wig that Gomez had worn was partially separated from her head and allowed the tiny piece of plastic that would take them back home to come into view. It had been held in place by a small piece of scotch tape. Margot carefully tore away the clear tape holding it in place, and gingerly removed the small ticket back home.
The fragments blew away with a small breeze, and along with it, it took their hope. Neither said anything for minutes, which seemed to them more like hours. A small high-pitched beep rang through Evelyn's ears. She started desperately rummaging through the other pockets until her frantic search yielded a small black box. It emitted a high-pitched sound that Evelyn could only hear because of her well-trained ears every 15 minutes Evelyn guessed.
"Radar," she whispered. "Do you know what this means?"
Margot shook her head.
"We have a way home."
************
"Alright. We have a problem. The 6 of our eight water tanks are broken beyond repair, which is exactly how many spare water tanks we have, but the other two are seriously damaged and we're not sure if they could withstand the pressure from the amount of water we need to fill them with. We barely have enough time to refill the tanks before they get back, so they've already started," Gordon said calmly, even though on the inside, he was in a full-blown rage that Doniger would be so careless, and now that need to save his own ass Doniger had always had would be the thing that ruined him.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck!" Doniger screamed as he pounded his fists on the table in defeat. There was nothing he could do, no order he could give that could fix this. He had dropped the ball, for once in his life, he had dropped the ball, and that damn idiot Gordon, the one who had fought him all the way, would be the one to pick it up. ITC's management looked on in shock and something cousin to horror at Doniger's collapse. The man who had always had what he wanted, always gotten what he wanted, always been rich, successful, powerful, influential, everything, had collapsed before them. It was as if all the glory of Rome and ended in one quick moment, with one small four-letter curse.
"We need to get back to work," Gordon said after a few moments, even he was shocked at Doniger's ruin. The few people who were in the small room silently exited along with Gordon to return to work, leaving Doniger to his demise. Five minutes ago, in Conference Room 5, a man who amounted to something close to a god had fallen.
************
"Okay, here's what we do," Evie said as she and Margot covertly dragged the bodies of two deceased soldiers over to the small hidden alcove they had landed in. From there they could see the battle rage on, but it would take serious concentration from anyone around the area to see the two of them, which was something Evie seriously doubted anyone would do. "We take our swords and cut our hair to about shoulder length, it's the safest way to go since we don't have elf ears. We put on these soldiers clothes and we make our way to Isengard or around there non-stop. I'm not sure if we can make it, we have a little bit less than 36 hours to travel something that might have normally been about a week or two's journey. It doesn't matter that we lost the ceramic though since we wouldn't have time to get back here anyway since the machines come back to where they arrive. I don't know how we'll get back, but going to Isengard is more of a hope than staying here."
"Alright," Margot said as they quickly and with little respect undressed the soldiers, "and Evie."
"Yea," Evie said as she tried as best she could to figure out how to put on the soldier's uniform.
"I'm sorry about earlier, I mean, the way I acted," Evie said with sincerity touching every word.
"Don't worry about it," Evie said with a smile, "You proved yourself out there," she said with a nod toward the battle, "It was only five minutes, but we're alive and that's better than some can say."
"It seemed more like hours."
"I found this off Gomez," she said as she flashed a small metal bracelet with a tiny engraved box in the center. The lid was open to reveal a small LCD monitor that was ticking time backward from 36:00:00. A load resounding boom filled the walls of Helm's Deep. It sent as much horror through the two women as the pounding of Doniger's fists had brought.
************
"Are you sure there's no way to contact them?" Gordon asked the scientist.
"Positive. The only form of communication is through the earpieces and either they were knocked out, turned off, or." the small anxious man in the white lab coat with the ITC logo on it said nervously.
"Or what?"
"Or the people wearing the earpieces, are dead since they work off the wearer's body heat."
"We're fairly sure that at least two of them are still alive though," another scientist, Gordon assumed, said as he turned his chair away from the computer monitor. The man was dressed casually; a polo shirt and jeans, the only thing that identified him as an ITC employee was the ID tag around his neck that read "David Stern." "It's probable that one of the three left is dead."
"Any idea who?" Gordon inquired.
"Not a clue. Just that two of the trackers we slipped in the sword handles are responding. It's possible the sword was discarded since it responds to any slight movement, even one as small as breathing, but there's only a slight chance of that."
"And there's no way to contact them and tell them that they can't come back yet?"
"None."
************
The two girls had cautiously made there way out of Helm's Deep with luck greatly on their side. They crept along the outward flanks of Saruman's army and ran in the direction of the Gap of Rohan, only knowing that they were following the small radar screen they had, and that time was not something they had much of and something they needed a lot of. Steadily and surely, the small timer ticked their time slowly down.
34:14:04
34:14:03
34:14:02
34:14:01
34:13:00
"Drag Gomez over to the side. We need to find that ceramic she had. It's the only way to call back the machines." They dragged what remained of Gomez's body over to the place where they had been hiding, and luckily, with the excitement of battle going on, were unseen. Evelyn began to search the body for pockets, which may have been used to hide the ceramic.
"Found it!" Margot cried. The wig that Gomez had worn was partially separated from her head and allowed the tiny piece of plastic that would take them back home to come into view. It had been held in place by a small piece of scotch tape. Margot carefully tore away the clear tape holding it in place, and gingerly removed the small ticket back home.
The fragments blew away with a small breeze, and along with it, it took their hope. Neither said anything for minutes, which seemed to them more like hours. A small high-pitched beep rang through Evelyn's ears. She started desperately rummaging through the other pockets until her frantic search yielded a small black box. It emitted a high-pitched sound that Evelyn could only hear because of her well-trained ears every 15 minutes Evelyn guessed.
"Radar," she whispered. "Do you know what this means?"
Margot shook her head.
"We have a way home."
************
"Alright. We have a problem. The 6 of our eight water tanks are broken beyond repair, which is exactly how many spare water tanks we have, but the other two are seriously damaged and we're not sure if they could withstand the pressure from the amount of water we need to fill them with. We barely have enough time to refill the tanks before they get back, so they've already started," Gordon said calmly, even though on the inside, he was in a full-blown rage that Doniger would be so careless, and now that need to save his own ass Doniger had always had would be the thing that ruined him.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck!" Doniger screamed as he pounded his fists on the table in defeat. There was nothing he could do, no order he could give that could fix this. He had dropped the ball, for once in his life, he had dropped the ball, and that damn idiot Gordon, the one who had fought him all the way, would be the one to pick it up. ITC's management looked on in shock and something cousin to horror at Doniger's collapse. The man who had always had what he wanted, always gotten what he wanted, always been rich, successful, powerful, influential, everything, had collapsed before them. It was as if all the glory of Rome and ended in one quick moment, with one small four-letter curse.
"We need to get back to work," Gordon said after a few moments, even he was shocked at Doniger's ruin. The few people who were in the small room silently exited along with Gordon to return to work, leaving Doniger to his demise. Five minutes ago, in Conference Room 5, a man who amounted to something close to a god had fallen.
************
"Okay, here's what we do," Evie said as she and Margot covertly dragged the bodies of two deceased soldiers over to the small hidden alcove they had landed in. From there they could see the battle rage on, but it would take serious concentration from anyone around the area to see the two of them, which was something Evie seriously doubted anyone would do. "We take our swords and cut our hair to about shoulder length, it's the safest way to go since we don't have elf ears. We put on these soldiers clothes and we make our way to Isengard or around there non-stop. I'm not sure if we can make it, we have a little bit less than 36 hours to travel something that might have normally been about a week or two's journey. It doesn't matter that we lost the ceramic though since we wouldn't have time to get back here anyway since the machines come back to where they arrive. I don't know how we'll get back, but going to Isengard is more of a hope than staying here."
"Alright," Margot said as they quickly and with little respect undressed the soldiers, "and Evie."
"Yea," Evie said as she tried as best she could to figure out how to put on the soldier's uniform.
"I'm sorry about earlier, I mean, the way I acted," Evie said with sincerity touching every word.
"Don't worry about it," Evie said with a smile, "You proved yourself out there," she said with a nod toward the battle, "It was only five minutes, but we're alive and that's better than some can say."
"It seemed more like hours."
"I found this off Gomez," she said as she flashed a small metal bracelet with a tiny engraved box in the center. The lid was open to reveal a small LCD monitor that was ticking time backward from 36:00:00. A load resounding boom filled the walls of Helm's Deep. It sent as much horror through the two women as the pounding of Doniger's fists had brought.
************
"Are you sure there's no way to contact them?" Gordon asked the scientist.
"Positive. The only form of communication is through the earpieces and either they were knocked out, turned off, or." the small anxious man in the white lab coat with the ITC logo on it said nervously.
"Or what?"
"Or the people wearing the earpieces, are dead since they work off the wearer's body heat."
"We're fairly sure that at least two of them are still alive though," another scientist, Gordon assumed, said as he turned his chair away from the computer monitor. The man was dressed casually; a polo shirt and jeans, the only thing that identified him as an ITC employee was the ID tag around his neck that read "David Stern." "It's probable that one of the three left is dead."
"Any idea who?" Gordon inquired.
"Not a clue. Just that two of the trackers we slipped in the sword handles are responding. It's possible the sword was discarded since it responds to any slight movement, even one as small as breathing, but there's only a slight chance of that."
"And there's no way to contact them and tell them that they can't come back yet?"
"None."
************
The two girls had cautiously made there way out of Helm's Deep with luck greatly on their side. They crept along the outward flanks of Saruman's army and ran in the direction of the Gap of Rohan, only knowing that they were following the small radar screen they had, and that time was not something they had much of and something they needed a lot of. Steadily and surely, the small timer ticked their time slowly down.
34:14:04
34:14:03
34:14:02
34:14:01
34:13:00