Okay! This chapter is a little quicker in coming! With any luck, I'll wrap this up soon, and there will be no more waiting!
As always, thanks for reviewing and feedback. And as always, redux, this has not been edited. Please bear with it. Enjoy!
Chapter 11Smoke from fired weapons hung in the air like wispy ghosts. Flint saw Suarez facedown on the floor, still and motionless. James lay sprawled, his weapon out of reach. Blood oozed from two wounds – one in the center of his chest and one in his side where Flint had shot him. He was losing volume fast and would not last long without help.
Flint moved forwards carefully, his rifle at the ready. He knelt down next to Suarez, reaching a tentative hand out to touch her. Her sudden flinch at his touch startled him to near standing. All at once, she was alive with writhing. Her body curled into itself in pain, her hand moving upward to her chest. She was turned away from him. Then she was up on her knees and one hand, still cradling her injury.
"Son of a bitch!" she growled in a shout, fighting pain.
He moved in to help her into a sitting position, resting her against the lower panel of a console station. Her hand clutched at the Kevlar vest. For a moment, Flint thought she was reeling from the impact of a stopped bullet until he saw blood threading through her fingers. He put his rifle on the floor and began unfastening the Velcro straps at her side. The quick ripping sounds reverberated in the room. She relinquished her grip long enough for him to remove the protective layer and examine the wound. A neat hole had been punched through the material. When he felt her back, his fingers came away red and warm.
"It's a through and through," he said, referring to the wound.
"No shit," she said with clenched teeth. Her hands were shaking, and she was breathing hard. "Check on him."
Reluctantly, Flint left her side and moved to where James lay motionless on the other side of the control room. The young man's eyes were closed, his breathing ragged.
"Two chest wounds," Flint reported.
Suarez closed her eyes against the pain. "Get some pressure on them. We need him alive."
Flint did as she instructed. He ripped off the sleeve of James' shirt and folded it, creating makeshift bandages. Suarez made her way to a standing position and joined Flint.
"Check his right wrist," she ordered, leaning over, unable to stand straight with the pain. "He should have a bracelet like the others in the cargo area."
He checked James' wrist. Indeed, there was a bracelet, highlighted in red.
"Yeah, he does," Flint reported.
Suarez swallowed hard, looking weaker by the minute. "Good."
She turned to the console behind her and began operating it. Her blood smeared on the polished glass surface as she worked the technology inside it.
"What are you doing?" Flint demanded, trying to keep steady pressure on James' wounds.
"What I came here to do," she said, her voice catching in her throat.
He dared not stop what he was doing to keep James alive. Suarez had made it clear that was important.
She straightened after working at the console and turned toward Flint. She slid down station's housing and sat back against the wall. Her legs flopped out in front of her, muscles weakening, as she leaned back. Her hand went to the cargo pocket of her BDU pants, fishing around until she found her lighter. She pulled it out and observed it in the palm of her hand.
Flint watched her, dismayed. "Hell of a time for a smoke," he said, pointedly.
"Time," she said, breathing quicker now, "is all I have."
With a shaking, bloody hand, she dismantled the Zippo, pulling out the metal insert that held the wick. Tiny blue lights, embedded in the insert, began flashing in manic sequence until it spun out of control. He could not tear his eyes away from it, feeling as though he was watching a bomb near detonation. A bright flash consumed the room. Flint's eyes were assaulted by lightning. He closed them, crying out as his head seemed to split in two.
Then the light was gone.
Darkness surrounded him. He was not sure if his eyes were even open. The absolute blackness enveloped and owned him. His body was sending his brain a thousand signals at once that he tried desperately to interpret. Flint was in a state of nothingness, reaching his hands out blindly, trying to find reference. Panic shot through him, as he feared death had found him.
It started as a faint light. In the distance, he could see it. It was yellow, unsteady, but it grew stronger. He walked toward it, unsure if it was the wisest thing to do and yet knowing he had no choice. The answers were in the light. He needed to know.
As he walked, the light grew stronger. Then he realized it was not just a single point of light but a chorus of them. It was flame dancing in the darkness. Behind it, he thought he saw the outline of a figure sitting, waiting for him. After a few more steps, he was certain. The figure was familiar. The confident posture told him before he ever saw her in detail that it was Suarez sitting by a campfire.
The darkness suddenly came alive around him with tall pines. Their pure scent flowed through him, reminding him that there were things in the world that had not yet been tainted by enemy forces. The ground under his feet became soft with the feel of earth and forest refuse. The murky darkness of nothingness transformed into a dense forest. Suarez eyed his approach for a moment. Then she poked at the fire with a stick she held loosely in her hand. Sparks shot up from the fire. He watched them rise, seeing a myriad of stars above him as was only seen from places that were not polluted with the aura of city lights.
He neared the campfire, feeling the heat emanating from it and warming him. An upturned log waited to serve as a seat for him. He sat down without invitation. Suarez did not look at him right away. She continued to poke at the fire, sending more sparks up into infinity.
"What is this place?" he asked, barely finding his voice.
Finally, she looked at him. Her face was gentle as she smiled slightly. She was calm, uninjured. "A gift to people like me," she said.
"Where are we?"
"We're nowhere. This is an illusion of my choosing."
"How did we get here?"
She jammed the stick into fire again. "This is a temporal bubble. Out there, time has stopped." She pointed back from where he had come with the stick. Its tip glowed orange in the dark night.
He dared to look where she indicated. What he saw was surreal. In the darkness from where he had just come was a view of the control room as he last remembered it. The people inside it were frozen, unmoving. He saw James lying on the floor, blood all around him, and Suarez with the lighter in her hand. Flint saw himself, as he was when she activated the bubble. He had been taken unaware of what she had intended to do.
"Why?" he asked.
"We're given this moment, should we need it, to tie up loose ends," she said. "Some use it to reflect or prolong the inevitable, I guess. It is an environment of our choosing, sometimes our last memory of life before our timelines end."
"What about you?"
She put the stick back in the fire. "I'm using it to give you final instructions, Flint."
"What final instructions?" He managed to focus on her once more.
"We have a slight problem out there," she said, nodding toward the frozen scene.
"I'm afraid to ask," he admitted.
"But you still need to know," she said. "I've activated what is essentially a self-destruct code in the egg. Like I told you, once it begins, everything it has brought will cease to exist."
Knowing there would be one, he asked, "What's the catch?"
She chuckled. "Always to the point, Flint – I like that about you." She regained her composure. "The room can sense how many people are inside it, thus the three dots on that upper screen to the right."
He looked. There were three red dots indicating the relative position of James, Flint and Suarez in the room. One of the dots had a bright highlight around its perimeter.
"The code," she continued, "will not activate until the control room is empty. It's one of those little security measures intended to keep the operator safe and sound in the event of a fold."
"So, why don't you and I just get out of there?"
She smiled contritely. "James managed to put a little glitch in that plan. Try to follow me on this," she said. "I don't have time to explain it twice."
"Okay," he said.
"The egg can differentiate who is from what time. James and I are from the future. You're in this time and space. In order to protect what is to come, the computer will not activate the fold sequence until it is sure nothing will be disrupted by it doing so. In other words, it will not allow those from the future to be destroyed by its actions in order to preserve the way things are meant to be."
He nodded his understanding, though he would have admitted it was confusing had she asked.
"For all it knows," she continued, "I should not be here.
"You, on the other hand," she said, pointing at him with the waning length of the stick, "are my past. If you are destroyed, then the future as the egg knows it cannot exist. Therefore, it becomes the egg's priority that you survive. The egg's technology still understands that the timeline should be preserved as much as possible. Otherwise, James' birth might never come to pass."
"So, how has James been able to change things in my time?"
"You're part of a very long equation. As long as key elements remain intact, James will be born in the future, but the opportunities presented to him will be different, allowing him to rise to a level of power that could potentially destroy everyone and everything."
"He's picking and choosing his changes," Flint concluded.
Suarez smiled, pleased at his grasp of what was happening. "He's creating his own mini-evolutions to influence the future. They're strategic changes, starting with empowering Cobra to bring down your Joe comrades early on in the game. Once the tide turns to, shall we say, the 'evil' side, there will be nothing to stand in his way to power."
"But once we cause the egg to fold, all those changes disappear?"
"Not entirely, but it will be enough to keep everything in check to bring alignment back as close as possible. Primarily, the arsenal he's planted in this mountain will dissolve."
He looked back at the frozen scene, eyeing the lighter in her hand with its blue glow.
"What about you? Why don't you just go back and start over? You could correct your mistakes and change everything the way it should be."
She looked at him directly. "Because you're my evolution, Flint," she told him. "The moment you entered that room with me, you changed my future."
"How?"
Suarez considered her words. "James was right when he called me a Cassie. My life is supposed to end in this time and space. This is a one-shot deal. I can't go back. I die here, Flint, and this is the end of me. My timeline does not proceed forward when this is finished."
"There has to be another way," he protested.
"No," she said solemnly. "That's why we're able to look to the future to the point of death. We can't look beyond it, because there is no beyond. His time ends here, and so does mine."
"Look," he said, bargaining, "we leave him and we'll both get out of here alive."
She smiled ruefully. "That's tempting, except James put a little failsafe into the plan. You know that bracelet on his wrist?"
"Yeah."
"Well," she said with a sigh, "only the person wearing it can get out of that control room. I managed to make it so I – we – could get in there. Getting out is something else. Even if I was tempted to make a run for it, I couldn't."
"What happens if you try to leave and don't have the bracelet on?"
"Ashes. Instant ashes. You're dust under a broom. If the systems can't authenticate someone's presence in either direction, it eliminates the perceived threat."
Flint was trying to internalize it all but felt he was failing at it. It was clear Suarez understood every implication and was willing to sacrifice herself for her cause.
"What happens now?"
Suarez looked at the frozen piece of time behind them. "Well, if you do the math, there's only one way this can go down." Then she looked at him again. "You have to kill me."
He felt the blood drain from his face. "What?"
"It's the only way, Flint. The sequence won't activate if I'm alive, and my wound isn't going to kill me any time soon. James is on his last few breaths, but I can survive that hole in my shoulder. I need you to ensure my death."
"That's not an option," he said, shaking his head.
"It's the only option," she argued. "You get that band off James before he dies so the lifelink isn't broken. Then you do what you have to do and get the hell out of there before it goes. You'll have fifteen minutes to make it to the surface and clear the compound."
He was still shaking his head. "No, I can't."
"If you don't, then things are going to be very screwed up, and in ways you couldn't imagine."
He cradled his head in his hand, watching the flames of the fire. "There has to be another way," he said in a desperate whisper.
"In the original timeline, I set the fold sequence in motion. James and I have a mutual kill, and that's that. The world is saved. You changed, that, though. So, I have to make sure what was intended to happen actually does, even if it means improvising."
She jabbed the stick into the fire. "Promise me, Flint. Do what should be done."
Though he knew he could never know the future or the past as she saw it, everything in him screamed that she was right. She had come this far in order to help them, and he truly believed she had every good intention. James had tried to entice him with power, and that tasted badly in the back of Flint's throat.
"Please," she asked one final time.
"Just tell me what to do," he vowed.
She stood up and stretched her arms over her head, looking calm for someone he had just promised to kill. Suarez yawned, as though the hour was late and the mountain air was having its effect on her.
The fire began to grow faint. Darkness began moving in around them. Flint felt as though water were rushing toward him. He took deep breaths, fighting the sense of claustrophobia that was overcoming him.
Suarez gave him a flick of her fingers in a small salute. "See you on the flipside, Flint."
He was not prepared for the flash of light as it zinged through his eyes, into his brain, and out the back of his skull. Just when he though his head was going to explode, he was back in the control room, breathing in a gulp of air as he returned to control of his body.
Suarez was sitting there, looking at him. Then she carefully reassembled the lighter and put it in her pocket. Her hand went back to the wound on her shoulder. It was subconsciously, the body's natural reaction to injury.
"Get the band off him, Flint. Make sure you don't lose skin contact," she ordered, the confidence in her voice gone and replaced by the marked pain she felt. "Just slide it over onto your wrist and secure it."
His mind was still processing the fire scene as he moved over James and picked up the man's limp arm. Carefully, he released the clasp on the underside. Then he put his own wrist parallel to James' and slid the band across until it was safely against his own skin.
James was barely breathing. A few moments after Flint secured the clasp on his own wrist, James died, his chest exhaling for the last time, blood ceasing to flow from the hole where Suarez's bullet had torn through his flesh. Likewise, Flint's mark drew still.
Suarez looked up nervously at the console. The highlight of the locator changed to that of Flint's position. He heard her breathe heavily in relief at his success in the transference. The dot that represented James blanked into blackness, just like his existence was no more.
"Good," she praised. "Now, the second part."
He had not had time to think of what he would do to fulfill his promise to her. "How?"
Never at a loss for words, she said, "Preferably something quick and painless," her voice quivering. She tapped her head with her index finger. "I suggest a well-placed shot to my temple."
Flint stopped, frozen in his actions. He looked down at her, suddenly seeing her differently than he had since she entered his life. She was a patriot, a hero for the good side, not simply willing to lay down her life for the right but actively bringing her life to a conclusion for the sake of the way things should be. If she had been a part of his time, she would easily have made it on the Joe team. She believed in what she was doing, willing to sacrifice herself for others.
She looked up at him. Her forehead was shiny with perspiration. "Flint, not to sound clichéd, but time's a'wastin'."
His hand slipped to his sidearm holster, his thumb releasing the buckle. The nine-millimeter felt heavy in his hand, cold and foreign. He pulled it out and held it down at his side, barrel pointing away from her. She saw his hesitation. Her hand shot out and grasped his wrist, pulling the barrel to her head.
"Do it, Flint," she said, nearly in a whisper, breath sounding in staccato intakes. A brim of tears welled in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She pulled the barrel tighter against her temple.
His finger slipped around the trigger. She held the pistol firmly against her skin, as though fearing he might deny her this last act. He felt the tremor of her hand translate up his arm like a shockwave. It rippled through his soul as she waited to die, waited for him to apply pressure to the trigger and fulfill her destiny. He had promised to end her life, to put a bullet in her head to seal her fate.
Flint looked over at James, who lay motionless and cold on the control room floor. The crimson gore around him was congealing in the forced air from the ventilation system. Somewhere in the course of death, James had opened his eyes a little. The lights above sparkled in the exposed tissue, giving the sense that he was not really dead, just sleeping. The blood, though, told a different story. James had bled to death, most of it collecting under him and soaking his pristine white shirt. The rest was still contained in his chest cavity where it had escaped his heart.
Flint's mind raced ahead of his actions, envisioning the result of her wish. The bullet would effectively launch the contents of her skull all over the adjacent wall. The entry wound would be clean, marred only by the halo of gunpowder from a contact shot. If viewed from only on side, it would be bearable. However, if the body were to be viewed from the opposite side, one would find a gaping hole big enough for a fist. The bullet would carry obstacles, in this case brain matter and bone, with it and eject it out the other side. Suarez was requesting a gruesome death. That, he decided in his raging thoughts, was something she did not deserve.
"I can't," he whispered weakly. "I can't."
Her eyes closed in frustration. "Flint, please," she begged feebly. "You have to do this. I have to die, and you have to live." She sniffed sharply, trying with everything she had not to lose her composure.
He slipped the barrel from her hand. She did not resist him, letting it slide through her fingers until it was completely out of contact. She heaved a sob, screwing her eyes shut in what he knew was both relief and anguish.
Her eyes were still closed. She regained some power over her emotions. "I don't want to see it coming," she said. "You have to finish this."
Flint could not prolong her suffering. He raised the gun and pointed it at her head again. Then his hand whipped back like a slingshot, bringing the barrel down solidly on the base of her skull, knocking her unconscious. She slumped forward and to the left, rolling onto the floor. Her arms lost tone as the signal from her brain to her muscles ceased fire.
He slipped down beside her on the floor and hauled her up, cradling her upper body in his arms. He stroked her hair, trying to comfort her even though he knew it was unlikely she was feeling much of anything at all. Flint clamped his eyes shut, knowing what he had to do but resenting it just the same. The very least he could do was make sure she, indeed, did not see it coming.
After a moment, he brought his hand to her face, caressing her cheek with the back of his fiingers in one last gentle gesture. Then, slowly, he placed his large hand solidly over her nose and mouth and cut off her air supply.