Rachel, Lorent, Klezmi, Silva, and a few others in minor roles are mine.
Rated PG : language; sexuality; violence; some mature concepts.
Covers the same events as my previous story 'Time Over', and shares a little dialogue with it.
Please review, it keeps me going.
My name is Alex. Alex. My name is Alex…
On my knees in that huge, dim space, black and silver uniforms crowding around me, I looked up into the face of death. She smiled, coldly, and said softly, "Traitor!" Raised the blaster and aimed it at my head. They say your life passes in front of your eyes when you know you're about to die.
I may seem to be a traitor, but I'm not. Not really. Not to the people who count, the people who deserve my loyalty. I was trying to help, trying to do the right thing, for everyone. And I did, I sacrificed everything, for Jen, for Time Force -- the real Time Force -- for everyone.
The dreams... they started weeks ago, crowding into my mind, dreams of different worlds, different lives. I dreamed of a better Time Force, one I had been proud to work for. I dreamed of a mission I gone on with Jen, Lucas, Trip, and Katie. But none of it had happened, not in my timeline. In my world Time Force was only a tool for Klezmi to grab power.
I'm not sure when I realized I was in another alternate reality, that the world I lived in was no more than a lie dreamed up by a madman. Maybe it came to me slowly, or maybe I just woke up one day and the knowledge was there. I knew, knew Klezmi had changed the past to create this mockery of a world. And Jen and Lucas knew, I was sure of it. I was right. They were already trying to change it back.
Jen wouldn't listen to reason, she didn't trust me anymore. I looked in those warm brown eyes that had once sparkled just for me, and saw cold dislike. I saw Trip and Katie, once my teammates, looking at me with something like fear in their eyes. They would never believe my warnings, never believe that I was on their side, that I was already taking steps to accomplish what they were trying to do.
I remembered standing in the large, luxurious office Klezmi occupied as director of Time Force, his dark, intent face staring at me. Those eyes, that seemed to be able to see inside my head. Small, silver-haired Silva, his right-hand woman, in her usual place standing at his side.
"I've detected suspicious activity by two of my subordinates. Jen and Lucas. They've been investigating historical periods outside of their assigned areas. I suspect they've been in contact with the mutants they went on the 2001 mission with. Trip and Katie." I could hear my own voice as if it belonged to someone else, betraying my friends.
"We know," Silva answered, as Klezmi continued to bore through my skull with his gaze. "We've been watching them. Collecting the evidence we need. Don't worry, they'll be taken care of." She smiled, that cold smile.
It was no surprise, I had known they were watching Jen and Lucas. As they watched all of us. I hadn't told them anything they didn't already know. But maybe if they believed me to be loyal…
"Jen and Lucas are not traitors to Time Force. They're only doing this because of Trip and Katie. They're being influenced."
Klezmi spoke for the first time, in his familiar deep voice. "They must be punished."
"Then let me handle it. Jen and Lucas are good officers. Valuable to Time Force. I'll make sure they get the punishment they deserve, and nothing like this will happen again. I'll help you... Give evidence. Lead the arrest squad... Just leave Jen and Lucas to me..."
"All right." Klezmi smiled. "We'll trust you to handle it."
I believed him. I should have known better, but I did what they wanted. Even gave the order to arrest Trip and Katie. Saw the pain of betrayal in their faces. But they weren't the only ones betrayed. The arrest squad was only supposed to take Trip and Katie, the mutants. They were supposed to leave Jen and Lucas for me. But I watched, helpless, as they were all arrested. Now, in my mind I could still hear the squad leader's mocking words.
"They'll get a fair hearing. Then you can attend the execution if you want."
I visited them; I remembered standing with my back to the guards while I got out the blaster I had smuggled, Jen's face as she watched, a flicker of surprise, quickly hidden. My clever Jen. I stunned the guards, we broke free. Then a nightmare of running, trying to find our way out… Instead we found her, again, silver hair and cold smile, confronting us with one of her guards. The flash of blaster fire, Trip falling to the floor, smoke puffing from his head. He was only the first to die.
We made it to the hanger where my ship was waiting. We ran, again, trying to get inside before Silva's black-and-silver uniformed guards spotted us. Too late... too late for Katie and Lucas, they were shot down, Jen and I couldn't stop, had to leave them there to die, what we had to do was more important... I told her to take the timeship, it was all ready, programmed for 2003. Told her to save Wes and Eric, change the timeline back to what it was meant to be. I had the morphers, gave Jen hers and took mine. Kissed her one last time, before leaving her, had to keep Silva's guards from shooting the ship down before it could escape into the past.
The memories came faster. The flash as I morphed, the strength and energy pouring into me. I ran to face the enemy, fought them as long as I could, but there were too many, they beat me down with blaster fire, and then I was helpless, demorphed. Klezmi had arrived, with Silva behind him. I looked up into her icy smile and saw death.
But the last thing I saw was Jen's ship, taking off, starting the journey that would end in the restoration of the original, right, timeline. This world should never have existed. Soon, it longer would. I felt no fear, and no pain, as Silva held the blaster to my head and fired. Then there was nothing, only darkness, unreality, non-existence, until the world came back…
I woke abruptly, confused and disoriented. There was that same strange sensation of disconnection I had felt twice before, when reality had been altered. Again, a dream of another life whispered around the edges of my mind, and quickly faded.
The accelerated healing had worked, I felt strong enough to get up and get dressed in the uniform I found waiting in the small bathroom. When I went through the door, Lucas, Trip, and Katie were waiting. I could see the signs of injury on their faces and hands, but they were up and alert, and also back in uniform. They looked agitated.
"Lucas, Katie, Trip. Are you all right?"
"Yeah," Katie said with a subdued smile. "We're all fine."
"Klezmi. We have to go back to 2003, stop what he was trying to do."
"No," Trip said. "It's already been stopped. Katie and I have been awake for a few hours." They both smiled. "Mutant toughness, I guess. We've been in HQ, doing some research with Rachel, Dagmar, and Sierra, while we waited for you two to wake up." He paused, and smiled again. "Jen stopped it, in 2003. She's alive, back then."
I just stared at them, unable to take it in. "Jen..." I whispered. But some deep part of me felt it was true, understood it somehow.
They glanced at each other. "Yes," Trip said. "Not exactly our Jen. Another version of her."
And suddenly I knew. "It was an alternate reality, again. Wasn't it?"
"That's what Trip thinks," Katie said.
"And in that reality..."
"We figured out what must have happened." Trip said. "We picked up echoes of the other timeline. In it, Wes, Eric, and Mr. Collins had been murdered in 2003. Another company took over Bio-Lab. Time Force was still created, but it was -- different. Klezmi was the director. He did all this to get power.
"Then, somehow, the Jen in that reality found out what had happened, and went back to 2003, to prevent the change. She did it, prevented Wes and Eric from being killed. The timeline reverted to the original, or something close. And -- she's still there, in our corresponding time."
I still had a lot of questions, but one thing was clear. "We have to find Klezmi."
"Right."
"Okay. Trip, you and I will look for Klezmi at his office. Lucas, Katie, try to find him at home." They nodded. All four of us took off at a run.
Twenty minutes later, in front of the computer center, I raised my morpher to my face. "Lucas!" I called.
"Alex. What is it?"
"Klezmi's not here. Did you find anything?"
"No. Nothing."
"Damn. Where would he have gone?"
"He'll try to go back to 2003 himself," Trip said urgently. "Try to kill Wes, Eric, and Mr. Collins himself. It's the only thing left for him to do."
"You're right. But how? All our timeships are disabled."
"Ransik," Trip said softly, his eyes lighting up.
It hit me. "Of course. The prison ship." The ship Ransik had stolen for his attempt to change history. It had been brought back from 2001, and stored in a remote warehouse. Everyone had forgotten about it. As far as I knew, it was still capable of time travel.
"Let's go," I said.
They were there, all right, I saw them as soon as we burst into the warehouse after a fast trip in our Timeflyers. Klezmi and a small silver-haired woman who looked very familiar. A small crew preparing the battered old prison ship. We stopped just inside the warehouse doors.
"Silva!" Lucas muttered. "She's a Time Force officer," he went on. "I think I saw her in the hanger, with the maintenance crew, before our timeship blew up."
"She must have planted that bomb," I answered, before stepping forward. "Klezmi!" I shouted. Pulling out my Time Force badge, I held it up. "You're under arrest."
"I don't think so!" He ran for the ship. The small form of Silva came flying at us. So did the people working on the ship. I had an instant to wonder at their loyalty before we were fighting.
Silva came right at me. I was sure now that she was the same woman we had fought before, in that empty office building. Remembering how strong she was, I was also sure she was a mutant. If she got her hands on me, it might be all over. I danced back, just out of her reach, ducking to the side and shooting a kick into her ribs, summoning my blaster at the same time. I wouldn't make the same mistake I had made with Ransik.
She grabbed at my leg, missing. I fired the blaster, at the stun setting. In a moment I saw it was too light, she hardly seemed to feel it. She sprang at me again, jumping an impossible distance, flying right at me. I dropped, rolling under her, and spun up again behind her, trying to adjust the blaster at the same time.
She was too fast, she hit the ground and leaped back at me, striking the weapon from my hand. I threw myself to the side, twisting out of her way. She kept going. I caught a flash of Lucas and Katie as they ran past me after her. A quick glance show me that my teammates had taken care of the others, Silva was the only one left.
Fast, she was so fast... Even as Lucas and Katie fired their blasters at her, she flew at the door of the ship, staggering only slightly as a beam hit her. Then she was through, and the door was closing. The engines were already started, their pitch rising rapidly.
"Go!" I shouted. "Let's get out of here!" And just in time. We fled as the ship rose and came at us, bursting out into the open and throwing ourselves down as it sent the warehouse wall flying in pieces, watching it send a beam spearing into the sky, opening the familiar whirl of a timehole, and disappearing into it.
"How much longer?" I paced nervously, watching a team of technicians working on one of the timeships we used for training flights. With all our official ships out of commission, we had to make do with what we had. That consisted of a training ship hastily outfitted with a timehole generator salvaged from one of the sabotaged ships.
"Another hour, they tell me." Logan stood beside me, outwardly calm, although I could see his fists clench.
"Damn. We have to get back there!"
"Alex, try to relax." Rachel stood on my other side, arms crossed, staring at the ship. Lucas and Katie were near her, talking in low voices.
"Relax? Klezmi and Silva are there right now. In our corresponding time, in 2003. Probably trying to kill Wes and Eric themselves."
"Alex. We see no signs of temporal disturbance. There's no reason to think they'll succeed."
"Maybe. I won't feel safe until those two are locked up."
"Captain? Alex?" We all turned at the sound of Trip's voice. He had come up behind us, his eyes bright and his face smiling. "I thought I'd take the time to look up the historical record again, see if there are any alterations," he blurted. "You won't believe what I found!"
"We already know Jen -- or another version of her -- is alive in 2003," I said quietly.
"Yes," Trip said. "We found records of her in the history of that time."
"But… what'll happen to her? Her timeline is gone now," Katie asked.
"I imagine we'll bring her home," Logan said.
Trip grinned happily. "Maybe not. I don't know what it means. But -- according to history, she stayed in 2003. She married Wes."
"What?" Logan exclaimed. "How's that possible?"
"I don't know."
We were silent until Rachel spoke up. "The timeline's gone through so many changes -- it's been patched together three times now. History has been reconfigured. I guess anything's possible."
"No," Logan said. "We can't let her stay there. Too dangerous to history."
"But if she's part of history now, it would be too dangerous to remove her." Rachel glanced at me, then back at Logan.
"Look into it," he told her. "Get Dagmar and Sierra on it. I want a recommendation as soon as possible." With that, he turned away and headed to the ship, where he began waving his arms at the crew. Lucas and Katie drifted after him. Trip wandered away.
I found myself smiling at Rachel. She gave me a quizzical look. "I'm sorry, Alex," she said abruptly.
"Why?"
"Jen's still alive, but she may not be able to come back."
"I lost her a long time ago. If she can stay with Wes, at least I know she'll be happy. I'd like that."
"You would? It wouldn't bother you?"
"It would bother me not being able to see her. She's still my friend. But -- no, I'd be happy for her."
She came a little closer. "Do you really mean that?"
"Yes. I meant what I said, Rachel. I'm over her. I want… someone else now." I reached to take one of her hands.
"Really?" She began to smile, her head tilting as she looked up at me. "Who?"
"Someone I'm very close to, right now."
"Alex!" Lucas's shout claimed my attention. "We're ready! Let's go!"
"Good luck," she said softly. She tugged at my hand.
When I stepped closer she slid her arms around my neck, pulling me down to her, her lips meeting mine. There was less softness in that kiss, and more promise. We stared at each other, breathless, when it ended.
"Alex!" Logan's voice summoned me.
I grinned. "With this to come back for… I'll make sure this is fast."
It was only my second time trip; at least it was a normal one this time. We sped into the black and violet swirl of the timehole, and through its vortex of energy. I was tense, half-expecting our emergency-rigged ship to fall apart at any moment, but it carried us smoothly. Then we shot out, into a darkened sky, over the now-familiar ocean north of Silver Hills.
"I'm picking up mutant lifesigns. Inland. Got a fix." Lucas threw us a quick smile and turned the ship. We flew over a night landscape of trees and fields. I caught sight of city lights twinkling in the distance. We were all silent.
"Below us. I'm getting four mutant signs."
The ship circled above a sprawl of buildings, hard to see in the dark. As we swept lower, I could see the glimmer of lights through a few of the windows. Lucas brought us down to a landing, silently settling us into the grass behind a small grove of trees.
We morphed before leaving the ship, and approached the building, moving around the walls looking for a way in. After a couple of minutes of searching, I found a large broken window and called the others with my morpher. Soon we were inside, the sensors in our helmets letting us move through the darkness, until we found a door into a central hallway.
"This way." Trip held up his portable scanner and pointed towards the center of the building. We all followed him through the corridor, seeing lights ahead as we rounded a final turn, then hearing the voices. I took the lead, motioned them to stay behind me, and crept closer, flattened against the wall.
An unfamiliar voice was speaking. "Klezmi was a traitor to his own kind, and Silva allowed herself to be misled. They turned on our people, for power, for personal gain. Klezmi deserved much worse than death."
Peering around the doorway, I saw them. The Quantum Ranger -- Eric -- was holding his blaster on a tall, powerful-looking white-skinned mutant whom I recognized as Conwing. Klezmi and Silva lay on the floor. Near them, standing with their backs to me, were Wes and Jen.
"You could have made Klezmi face the consequences of his actions. Why didn't you help us capture him, instead of killing him?" Jen was asking.
Conwing answered her. "Klezmi is very dangerous. You don't know much about him. You didn't even know he was a mutant until I told you."
"What made him so dangerous?"
"He had two abilities. He could make people believe him, believe in him. He attracted a fanatical loyalty from his followers. You saw that in his woman." He indicated Silva, lying at his feet. "She was once loyal to the mutant cause, until Klezmi got to her. I was only able to turn against him because I've been here for weeks, away from his influence."
"He tried to persuade me that he was here to help us," Wes said. "For a minute I almost believed him."
"Given more time, he might have convinced you. That was one of his talents."
"And the other?" Eric asked.
"He was sensitive to alternate realities. He could remember every reality he has existed in, and he could sense how to manipulate history to get the results he wanted. He knew just what to do, to manufacture the world he wanted to live in, and he was able to get others to help him. Time Force would have been too weak to execute him, and he would only have tried again."
"So -- he knew exactly what changes to make in our time, to put himself in power in the future," Wes said slowly.
"That explains a lot." I started into the room. They all turned to look at us with startled faces. I raised my arm and demorphed as Jen stared at us, starting to smile. "I see we're a little late to help, except to clean up the mess," I added.
"Alex! Trip… Lucas, Katie…" Jen ran forward to hug me. I held her tight for a moment, the memory of flames and screaming receding a little, finally truly believing she was alive again. Then she was going on to hug the others, and Wes was grinning and hugging them too, and offering me his hand with a more restrained smile.
Eric's voice brought all of us back to more practical considerations. "Do you think we could put off the reunion long enough to take care of business?" he asked. "Do you guys have any of those containment things handy? We've got prisoners to worry about."
TBC...