Rachel, Lorent, Klezmi, Silva, and a few others in minor roles are mine.
Rated PG : language; sexuality; violence; some mature concepts.
As ever, Please review...
More time went by, the weeks stretching into months, until one day I realized Jen had been back for a year. Life had returned to normal, the business of Time Force went on. We searched in vain for the mutant mastermind Ransik had warned us about. All we found was that he must indeed be very good at covering his tracks, if he even existed at all. We continued to investigate the 'artificial' mutant I had fought, and Lorent, the human in whose house we had found him. Both trails lead nowhere.
Nadira astonished us all, both by managing to get a job at a daycare center, and by being good at it. She took to working with children with amazing ease, revealing a generous and outgoing nature. Katie said it shouldn't be so surprising; Nadira's really a child herself, at heart. Lucas spent several weeks finding various excuses to spend time with her. Finally he gave up on denying that he's interested in her, and they started dating. He quickly began to neglect his work, walk around in a daze, and become incoherent every time her name was mentioned. In other words, to act like a man in love.
And what about Jen and me? We were still seeing each other, not frequently, not seriously, mostly just trying to be friends. She remained distant, and I remained determined to get her back, to make her remember why she had fallen in love with me in the first place, not to accept defeat.
It was not an easy time for me. Sometimes I wanted her so much I ached with it. Sometimes I found myself wondering why I was wasting my time, and thinking about Rachel. And sometimes I was eaten up with jealousy and anger, wanted to hurt Jen, crush the memory of Wes out of her brain, and then take a timeship back two hundred years and blast the life out of Wesley Collins.
Wes. He haunted me, mocking me across the centuries. With the stabilization of the timeline and the return of Jen and her team as conquering heroes, the story of Ransik's activities in the past and information about the origins of Time Force had inevitably become public knowledge. Wes Collins and Eric Myers had become famous historical characters, and inspired quite a fad, involving documentaries, advertisements, even fashions based on Silver Guardian uniforms.
Seeing Eric's rather harsh face scowling out at me from posters and vidscreens was one thing. It was entirely another matter when it was Wes plastered all over the city, and not only because of my jealousy. I couldn't escape him, I saw that same face in the mirror every day.
I began to avoid going outside of Time Force grounds. Even a simple shopping trip or meal out at a restaurant meant seeing almost every head turn, staring at me in surprise and recognition. Then came the invitations to be interviewed on news shows and talk shows, to make personal appearances. Everyone wanted to know whether I was really Wesley Collins' descendant, and how it felt to be Wesley Collins' look-alike.
How did it feel? I started to hate him. He had taken my fiancée, used my morpher and been permitted to keep it. He had become famous as the Red Ranger, even though I had been first. He was admired as the one who beat Ransik, when I had beaten him first. He was the one who had become a great hero, who had a place in history. Two years ago people had recognized me as the Red Ranger. Now I was only Wes Collins' double. It was unnerving, demoralizing.
Such was my state of mind as I stared at a small abandoned office building in one of the more dismal sections of Silver City. We had finally gotten a lead, at the cost of another life. A mutant had shown up, dead, with the same DNA deterioration as the one I had watched die the last time I used the Ranger suit. A witness had surfaced who said he saw two men carry the body from this building and leave it in the alleyway where it had been found. When we checked it out we had scanned mutant DNA inside.
This time the whole team was going into action, me with four other Rangers at my side. I quickly glanced over the others. Jen was looking quietly determined, Lucas the same, Trip and Katie had a sparkle of excitement in their eyes. It occurred to me that all of them now had considerably more experience as Rangers than I did. I stifled that, and the resentful thought that I should have been wearing red instead of black.
After a glance behind me at Logan, I raised my arm and nodded to the others. We all pressed the activating buttons on our morphers, and in five glittering flashes of light, we were the Time Force Rangers. The transformation completed, I beckoned to my teammates and led the way to the building entrance.
It was dark inside, and gloomy. A casual visitor would assume that no one had walked through these corridors in years, but with the enhanced vision the suit gave me I could see that the traces of dust on the floor were disturbed. We moved slowly and cautiously further inside.
It was a typical office building, a maze of corridors with doors opening off them, many standing ajar to reveal empty offices. There was some furniture here and there, looking lonely and abandoned.
Trip consulted his scanner and beckoned us on. We followed him down corridors and around turns, the darkness and silence pressing in on us. Then he paused, stopped, and motioned us to proceed slowly. We crept forward as I caught a low murmur of voices and the sound of footsteps approaching.
It happened fast. A tall, shadowy figure appeared, stepping out of one of the offices. He saw us instantly, froze for a moment, and then ran, surprisingly fast for someone so large. We charged after him.
I was in the lead as we ran down darkened hallways. The suit made me fast, fast enough to catch up. As I reached for him, he turned. I saw dim light glint off the blaster in his hand, before the beam shot toward me. I jumped back, feeling a reflexive fear, at the same instant trying to tell myself this wasn't Ransik, I wasn't going to die again. The blast hit me, stinging painfully but doing no more harm than that.
Lucas banged into me from behind, cursing as we both staggered. The shadowy man whirled away and ran again. I glanced back to check on my team, seeing them right behind me.
"Alex?" Jen called. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Come on." I was angry now, embarrassed at my own weakness, ready to take it out on shadow-man.
Suddenly a new figure appeared, barreling out of the same office the man had come from, not trying to run away but dashing into our midst from behind. This one was small and slim, unmistakably feminine, with light-colored hair. She hit hard and amazingly fast.
Catching Katie by surprise, she punched her in the stomach, leaving her doubled over and falling to one knee. A savage kick to Trip's midsection send him slamming into the wall. Jen jumped toward her, swinging a fist at her face. She ducked, grabbed Jen, and threw her down the corridor, where she fell and skidded for several meters.
Lucas tried to hit her with a spin kick next. The woman grabbed his foot and yanked him up, then slammed him down to the floor with both hands. Then I was facing her. By this time I had summoned my blaster, obviously hand to hand combat was useless. But she was too fast and too close, she backhanded the blaster from my grip, wrapped her arms around me and lifted me into the air while squeezing the breath out of me.
The next moment, I was on the floor on my back. The sound of receding running footsteps told me our opponents were getting away. My teammates were all groaning while climbing back to their feet.
"Everyone okay?" I gasped. They all replied affirmatively.
"Wow, did you see how strong she was?" Trip asked.
"I felt how strong she is." I got up. "Come on! They're getting away!"
Again I was in the lead as we followed. I rounded a corner just in time to see the door to the stairwell swing shut. We dashed through it, crowding into the floor landing as Trip used his scanner again. Then we were running down the stairs as fast as we could, spilling out into the basement in moments.
It was a little better lit down there, the dim glow of emergency lights letting us get our bearings. I guess it was a typical basement, a small group of offices to one side, most of the remaining space left open in one vast room dotted with the heavy machinery that had once supplied heat, cooling, water, and power.
We spread out, moving into the empty space, every sense alert. Trip consulted his scanner and nodded toward the other side of the basement. We hurried in that direction.
"Look!" Jen was the first to spot them, two shapes, one large and one small, running toward a door in the far wall. We all sprinted, chasing them with all the speed our suits could give us.
The two of them reached the door with us only meters behind. Jen and I had summoned our blasters by this time. "Fire!" I shouted as the small one yanked at the doorknob, breaking the lock.
The big one ducked, avoiding the first blasts. The woman heaved at the door again, wrenching it off its hinges, lifting it over her head and throwing it in our direction. We scrambled, but it hurtled directly at Trip and Lucas. At the last moment Katie leaped and caught it, falling back and crashing into the two of them.
"See if they're okay!" I shouted at Jen. I turned back to the pursuit, running through the empty doorway into a dark corridor. Even as I so recklessly charged ahead, a blaster burst hit me.
It hurt, but I hit the floor and returned fire, not very effectively since I couldn't see what I was shooting at. Another shot hit me, and another. The sensors in my helmet finally spotted them, hiding and shooting at me from around a corner, but I was already in trouble, my blaster weakening as the energy in my suit was drained.
Two beams coming from behind me announced the arrival of Jen and Lucas, just in time, Trip and Katie limping behind them. They reached me as I felt the painful tingling shock and saw the warping light of an involuntary demorph. It was all too familiar. Jen saw and threw herself to the floor in front of me as a shield, Lucas crouched next to her and kept shooting. A moment later Trip and Katie were also in front of me, the hallway was ablaze with blaster fire, I still couldn't move, and the first beam that got through might kill me, permanently this time.
"Get Alex out of here!" Jen yelled over the noise.
"Stay in front of us!" Katie said. She grabbed me under the shoulders and began to drag me back. The others backed after us, still protecting me while returning fire. After what seemed like hours but was only seconds, we were safely out and back in the basement.
Jen, Trip, and Lucas headed back after them despite my gasped protest. Perhaps a minute later they were back. "They got away," Jen reported, her face grim. "That corridor leads to another building. Our troops stationed outside never even saw them."
"Damn it," I muttered. "I should have stayed back. Should have..."
"Not your fault."
I just glanced at her concerned face before turning away.
I wasn't in a good mood that night, blaming myself for our failure, trying to deny to myself that I was deeply shaken by the forcible demorph. Maybe that's why all of them, Jen, Trip, Katie, and Lucas and Nadira, insisted on going out to dinner with me. I would have preferred to be with Jen, alone, but she seemed to want the extra company.
It quickly got irritating, watching Trip and Katie quietly talking, communicating with the ease of close friends. Lucas and Nadira were worse, holding hands, gazing into each other's eyes, ignoring the rest of us, generally being as annoying as only lovers can be. But of course my real problem was Jen, sitting there not holding my hand, not gazing into my eyes, leaving me feeling quite alone and unloved.
I sat and sulked, of course only making myself feel worse when they all persisted in carrying on a comfortable conversation anyway. Trip and Katie in particular seemed to be in an inappropriately cheerful mood.
"It was so great using the suit again!" Trip exclaimed.
"Yeah, it's been months. Things have been so quiet since we got back," Katie said.
"You mean boring. Remember how it was in 2001? Seems like there was a different mutant attacking every week." He flashed a guilty look at Nadira. "Sorry. No offense."
"Don't worry," she said with a smile. "I know what my father and I did. I don't mind people talking about it."
"I'd like to know who's behind these new mutants," Lucas commented. "You know, the ones who died."
"Maybe the two we fought today." This was from Jen.
"Yeah. Maybe one of them was the Mystery Mutant," Katie said. She and Lucas laughed.
"Don't laugh. It could be true," Trip said solemnly.
"What do you think?" Lucas asked Nadira.
"Me?" She shifted, looking a little uncomfortable. "Daddy never really involved me with his friends. Said they were too rough. But I remember him talking about -- the Mystery Mutant is as good a name as any, I guess. He's been around for a few years, Daddy did business with some of his people. Tried to find out who he was, but never did. He was sure he was a man, and lives here in Silver City, but that's about all. Daddy thought he probably was passing for human."
"What kind of person would use the Muta-Chem? Mutate humans and let the treatment kill them?"
"A terrible person. Worse than Daddy ever was. He would never use people that way."
They were all silent for a few seconds. Nadira's words had struck a nerve with me. In my mind Ransik had been the ultimate evil. I had faced him and failed. For the first time I really thought about the prospect of coming up against someone worse, and wondered if I could meet that challenge. My mood plunged even lower.
"Can't we talk about something else?" I demanded, more angrily than I should have.
"Sure," Lucas said with a considering look at me. The others all gave me that same look, and then exchanged a glance that clearly said, 'Humor him.'
"So, Lucas, how's the racing? Gotten Nadira to try it yet?" Katie asked with conspicuous cheerfulness.
The two of them looked at each other and laughed. "Not yet," he said. "She's chicken. But I'm working on it."
"You mean I'm not insane, like you."
"Insane, am I?"
"Alex, I hear Rachel's going to demo the new Timeflyers for us next week."
Startled, I looked up at Trip's expectant face. "Yeah, I guess."
"Well, how are they? What can they do?"
I shrugged. "I don't know any more than you do."
"I thought she would have told you already. You guys seem like such good friends."
To my horror, I could feel myself blush, and hoped it wasn't visible in the darkened restaurant. "She hasn't said anything to me," I muttered. I could see Trip's face sharpen with curiosity and wondered if it was normal human perception or mutant psychic senses. Fortunately, he dropped it. Almost reflexively I glanced at Jen, to see her watching me, her face carefully blank.
"Oh good, here's our food," Katie said.
I busied myself with my plate while trying to calm myself down. After a while the others began to talk again, and we spent the rest of the meal in a buzz of inconsequential small talk. No one spoke to me directly again, leaving me largely to my own rather dismal thoughts. When the dinner was finished it was late, I was grateful when all of us were anxious to leave.
The others left us at the park outside our residence halls, tactfully giving me some time alone with Jen. Silently we started through the little park that had been the scene of so many important events in my life. Silently we entered Jen's building and slowly walked through the hallways, until we reached her apartment.
At her door she turned to face me. "I'm sorry about what happened today," she said.
"Why? It wasn't your fault. You saved my life."
"But you feel badly about it. It wasn't your fault, either."
"I suppose." I wasn't convinced.
"Alex, you're too hard on yourself. Life isn't perfect, and people certainly aren't."
"I always thought you were." I smiled, slightly and rather bitterly.
"Don't say that." She looked away from me, obviously upset. "I'm not perfect. You know that better than anyone. I can't live up to that kind of standard."
"I'm not asking you to live up to anything." I sighed, the disappointments of the day weighing heavily on me. I was torn between the urge to leave and nurse my bad mood in private, and the need to talk. Talking won out, but I didn't feel like discussing it standing in a hallway. "Look, can I come in for a few minutes?"
"Sure."
She opened the door and led the way inside. I looked around at the familiar apartment where I had spent so many nights. I had been here since then, of course, but usually for only a few minutes at a time. It felt like an old friend I hadn't seen for a while, bringing back memories almost painful in their intensity.
"It's been a year now." I wasn't even sure why I said that, but I knew it had been on her mind as she nodded, eyes downcast and lips thinning.
"Yes. A year." She looked up at me, smiling now, although it didn't reach to her eyes.
"It's time to forget the past. For both of us."
"I've… accepted that."
"Have you? Have you forgotten Wes?"
She blinked at the name. "You know I'll never forget him. But I've accepted the fact that I'll never see him again. I'm ready to move on."
"Ready to get on with your life? Our lives?" I stepped closer, rested one hand on her shoulder and lightly touched her cheek with the other.
"I know this has been hard for you."
"And you. I can tell you've been unhappy."
"I want both of us to be happy again..." She looked up at me, her face calm and serious. "But I don't know if this is the right way, Alex. I don't think I can make you happy."
"You did once. Have things changed so much?"
"Maybe we've changed." She sighed, turning her face away. "Maybe it's just that too much has happened. Things can never be the same between us again."
"No, it won't be the same. But it could still be good. We could still be together." I watched the uncertainty on her face. "Don't give up, Jen. It can still work." She faced me again and I put my arms around her, kissing her when she accepted the embrace.
Was I persisting out of love or out of stubbornness? Did I truly want her then, or was I only unwilling to accept defeat? Did we have any real chance of making each other happy? Or was all of this a mistake? The questions were there, firmly locked away in the back of my mind. Considering how things turned out, I should have listened to them.
TBC...