Airborne
Sahara requisitioned a UNIT plane and then switched to a chopper in DC. Antonio had watched as the eastern seaboard flashed by below him, cities and beaches alternating by, one after another.
The chopper set them down outside a little white shed in southern West Virginia.
After the helicopter had lifted off and they could hear again, he caught up to her just as she reached the door of the shed.
"I thought we were going to meet your mother?"
"We were," Sahara said as she reached into her jacket pocket. "She got pulled onto something else, but she left me a message." She pulled out a scrap of paper with numbers scrawled across the surface. She began punching codes into an entry panel beside the doorframe.
He watched as she tapped away. "What, are you a computer expert too? Toxicologist, hacker and Sigourney Weaver all rolled into one?"
"No," Sahara shook her head sadly as she keyed the last code. "Just half-English." The door swished open and she stood aside for him to go through first. "On my mother's side."
Yellowstone National Park
They were behind her, they were right behind her and there was nowhere for her to go, there was no where left and she could barely breathe, Shard couldn't breath any more she couldn't go any further, she couldn't do it any more, she couldn't go any further, why were they trying to get her, why did they care, no one cared, no one ever cared, except Bryce who went and got himself killed, couldn't run, can't run, can't…
Thump, thump, thump… each step was heavier and heavier, dragging, panting, she could barely hear herself wheeze and gasp as she broke from the trees and staggered to the edge of the gorge, the steep yellow cliffs, gaping open, stretching down for what seemed like miles below her, the river gushing and rushing at the base, so distant it was as if it were on another planet or the moon in the sky.
Shard could hear the men stomping through the woods behind her; she didn't turn around, but she raised her hands, hypnotized, staring below at the emptiness that seemed so impressive somehow simply by virtue of not being there. It must have taken thousands and millions of years to carve out this canyon and here she was only twenty-
The sound of the gunshot made her flinch.
They'd missed. But it didn't matter. Shard had made her decision; to lie at their feet, bleeding and twisted like Bryce and those bodies in the crater, or become part of history, travel through time, past the layers of rock, into the past and be one with the flowing river- a chance to fly, for the first time in her life.
Without even letting herself think about it, without a thought at all, she stepped off the cliff, arms outspread and flew.
West Virginia
"What is this place?" Antonio stared around the empty concrete room, bare except for a central platform ringed by a small metal railing. By the door was a small plinth with a large red button embedded on top, stenciled with the words "Do Not Touch."
"Damned if I know. Mum always called it 'Church' but I think she was being sarcastic. She usually is…" Sahara squinted once more at the instructions on the crumpled piece of paper. "I thought this would be more complicated, but still..." She shrugged and slammed her fist down on the button.
Antonio flinched as a klaxon sounded and overly dramatic red lights began to flash and whirl.
Anything remarkable, however, failed to happen.