Tic.
Tic..
Tick…
Tick.
Johny's eyes fixated on the watch as it slowly worked its way counter clockwise and then came to a stop at eleven.
He lay naked on a bed of fur and silk in a dark cavernous room that echoed with every breath, every suckle of female lips on his male sensibilities.
His eyes still fixated on that clock as it still ticked but not movement from either hand could dictate where the time had gone. Was this realm going forward or reverse from Earth?
The blurred vision of a pale form on top of him laid the ambient framework for this dissonant thought. Only when she disrupted his thoughts and that bare form came into focus did he snap back and slap her across the face.
The room fell in temperature from cold to freezing. It bleed through the cavernous walls and stretched upward like bony fingers from every door way. He grabbed the Outworld woman by her long black hair and pulled her up from his moist flesh and glared into her eyes like the slave she was.
"Get under the bed and wait for me." He full grasp of hair, the silky smooth feel of female hair, much like that of any girl he had before was torn and her body thrown over the bed to hit with a loud slap and bump onto the wooden floor beneath them.
She whimpered but moved with haste as the door opened and a great chill surged through the room like a dense fog of frozen breath and Johnny's feet came down on her hair as he stood to great the cold air.
"Clothe yourself, Earthrealmer." A voice came from the chilled hall.
"Learn to knock." Johnny returned as he pulled his clothing together from the floor.
"Sub-Zero will see you and Kano now." The young man, his face hidden behind cloth and hood. Fabrics fell around him like a medieval peasant, save for the disguise. Johnny took a hard look at him and dismissed him with a nod.
"Give me a moment, Bruce Lee." He snickered to himself.
"The Lin Kuei does not wait for Earthrealmers." The man pulled Cage with the air that began to freeze and seize his lungs.
"All of you can do this?" Cage watched his breath fog around him.
No answer.
Down a river of hallways through the cavernous underground he had been lead through that was the depth of the island's belly, Johnny Cage found himself being escorted into a large room with tables spread in the center. It reminded him of the convention centers he'd attend after Ninja Mime had become successful. Complete with Ninja Nerds.
"This again?" He approached two men, Kano and Sub-Zero, at the center most table which housed helmets of what looked like robots.
"What do you see?" Sub-Zero lifted his eyes from Kano's red stare and welcomed Cage into the conversation with a nod.
"Money." Kano replied, but the question was for Johnny, as Sub-Zero had refused to break his glance.
Cage sized up the man. Tall, broad shouldered and pale as vampire. Every man in the room, including himself and Kano could see their breath and feel the chill, but it wasn't until now that he realized that chill emanated from this man they called Sub-Zero.
His eyes narrowed as they waited for answers. Arms crossed in a tighter black and blue attire of linen and silk, crafted better than the man that escorted him, but similar in style.
"Cyber Men? Droids? Terminators?" Cage asked, but Sub-Zero gave him the answer he sought.
"The future."
He didn't quite see it, but he could see the various workings of the Black Dragon all laid out with wild price tags and knew that somehow these two men saw the world completely differently, yet were about to massively benefit from it.
"All I care about is the paycheck I get. You like what you see, you get what you want." Kano butted in.
He picked up a red helment. Sleak, but big and long black fibers as thick as rope stretched down from each skull. All of the eyes were black, but there were various colors from red, yellow, blue, even grey.
"I imagine you'll want the blue ones," Kano added, "These are the prototypes though." He meant the yellow and red. "Call it mustard and ketchup, mate."
"They will do fine." Sub-Zero turned back toward Kano, his interest in Cage gone.
"What do you need these for?" Cage finally asked after a long pause to examine the pieces.
He had seen parts and wires, lights and some of what the Black Dragon had built, but this room with the heads, torsos, and the glimpse of the scope this Sub-Zero hinted at blew his mind. In a place as dark as this, as remote and medieval as Outworld, technology still crept into the hearts of those that wished to jump forward.
Here in this twisted realm, it wasn't television they wanted, nor cars or cellphones. Sub-Zero provided a partial answer, and a complete question to his.
"My clan."
Kano turned toward him at the third table as Johnny touched a hand made of fibers and metal, like a glove. He felt like it was the closest thing to touching the hand of Luke Skywalker, or Darth Vader. Which one did Sub-Zero fight for?
"Aye, careful not to damage the merchandise. Got to teach this shithead the art of the deal." He nudged Sub-Zero, but the masked man paid no attention.
"What if they don't want this?" Cage spoke, the question was a thought, but somehow in the cold expanse around him it was grabbed from the dead fingers of if his inner mind and thrust into the thin, weary air.
Sub-Zero turned toward him again, his full body and then moved toward him.
The air was thin, Cage imagined itself at the top of a mountain as he gasped for breath and found only icicles. The cold eyes, white and blue like the ice that formed at the saliva that frosted Cage's lips, stared into him and he could almost feel a smile beneath that linen mask.
"Would you?" Sub-Zero's voice, near a whisper, playful, and sinister as it trickled like ice down his spine.