New Beginnings by Marcia Gaines
Chapter Nine
"Bering and Wells," Myka flashed a quick grin before disappearing under the table. Helena looked around and blinked. An unsettling feeling overtook her as she worked through the severe sense of déjà vu. She looked down and touched the table in front of her. Caturanga's chess game. She was sitting in the Regent Sanctum and from the looks of it, had already beaten the game. Change the rules, the words echoed in her mind. She had done just that, and in doing so paved the way for the destruction of the Warehouse. But, if I hadn't, Myka would be dead, she thought. She turned and looked as Myka rose from her crouched position. She held chess pieces in her hand. That's right, thought Helena. Those fell to the floor when the room started shaking… just before Walter Sykes took Pete with him through the portal to the Warehouse. She turned and looked at the wall as the memory played in her mind.
"Now all we have to do is open the portal again," said Myka and began placing chess pieces on the board. "Hopefully they won't be too far ahead of us." Helena watched as she added each piece. She shook her head trying to make sense of things. Moments ago they were standing in the Warehouse office talking about Artie's pocket watch, but somehow they were now back in the Sanctum. Considering her recent experiences, however, she wanted to be slow to draw any conclusions. "What's wrong?" Myka paused in mid-placement still holding a white bishop in her hand. "Helena?"
Helena turned her head toward Myka and took a deep breath. "Myka," she began hesitantly, "do you get the feeling we've done this before?"
"What? Escaping from death-traps? Yes. Defying the laws of physics in order to walk through walls? Not so much, no." The playfulness of Myka's response was lost on Helena's focused mind.
"No, I'm serious," protested Helena. She glanced at the wall again. "Don't you recall…" She thought better of her question and turned her head back toward Myka. "What's the last thing you remember?" If she was right, and they were where she thought they were – when she thought they were – she had to tread carefully.
"Uh, okay." Myka looked up as she thought. "You saved my life, Pete shot us with his Tesla, and then Sykes and he went through the portal." She pointed to the wall as she finished. "Why? What's the last thing you remember?" Something in Helena's demeanor raised alarm bells in her head and she wanted to know the reason behind the strange questions.
As I feared, Helena thought running her fingers through her hair. We've traveled back in time. To that day. This was definitely the past; Myka's recounting of her most recent memory made that much, at least, beyond doubt. But how? And why this day? She looked at Myka. "We don't have much time. Things are about to get very bad. I promise I'll explain it all later." If I get the chance, she thought. Even though she knew there was no way to change the past, she could not but try. "Right now I need you to listen to me." Helena stood and took Myka by the hand. Her eyes pleaded as much as her voice. "Please, I need you to turn around and leave. Don't follow me, and don't return to the Warehouse today, just leave. Get as far away from here as you can."
"Helena, what's going on?" Myka's concern was evident. She dropped Helena's hand needing to focus on the task in front of her. The affection, as welcome and innocent as it was, only served to distract her. She glanced at the chess piece she still held before turning her eyes to Helena's once again. She twirled it over and over as she concentrated on Helena's face. Something was amiss, and the concerned woman before her knew what, but for some reason did not think she should share the details with her. Helena's fear was out of character, and if H.G. Wells was frightened something had to be terribly wrong.
"Myka, please. Please just trust me." Helena's voice took on a disquieting urgency. Helena had faced many dangers in her life, and had borne many burdens. The special relationship she shared with Myka meant the world to her. Nothing mattered more, in fact. The idea of watching her suffer for months again was more than she could stomach. If she ever needed the blind-faith of the exquisite green-eyed woman, it was now. Myka looked at her a long moment before speaking.
"I do trust you," she said. "You want me to leave? I'll consider it, but on one condition." Helena stepped toward her giving the kind of facial expression to indicate she would agree to any condition as long as Myka stayed away from the Warehouse. "Tell me everything." Myka's voice was adamant and Helena knew there was no way around it. She had no choice. One way or another she needed to try to make something different happen this time. The feeling it caused inside her made her think of her desperate attempt to save her daughter's life, but in the end there was nothing she could do to change what happened to Christina. She feared the same might be true of the Warehouse. Still, it was better to try than to simply accept the inevitable.
"Okay, but I'll just give you the highlights. We haven't much time." Quickly she explained events, as she knew them, leading up to her jump through time. She related how Sykes intended on killing each of them and destroying the entire Warehouse. Myka had difficulty comprehending the story and her eyes widened when Helena told her of the masonry piece from the House of Commons attached to the underside of Sykes' wheelchair. She relayed the futile attempt to disarm the bomb and the resulting explosion that destroyed everything.
"The entire Warehouse. Gone?" Myka asked incredulously. She began pacing. Whenever she had trouble fathoming the enormity of a situation she often resorted to patrolling an unknown set of boundaries on the floor. Helena answered with a nod. "All of it?" There was another nod. The concept was inconceivable to her. "But Steve is alive?" Helena nodded.
"I did see Marcus inject him with a poison. It was supposed to induce a heart attack." Helena said. "I'm not sure how he survived, but he was definitely at the Inn and the Warehouse, though he disappeared just before I ended up here. Again." She looked around the room and shook her head in disbelief.
Myka paused to consider the information. "And the rest of us? You saw us all? We all lived." Helena side-stepped the statement.
"While you all worked on a way to stop the explosion, I looked for an alternative. I found one, in the electrical grid. It allowed me to redirect the barrier and create a force-field to protect you from the explosion. It was only for a last resort, but unfortunately, there was just not enough time to disarm the bomb. There was no other way to save you. When it eventually went off you were all safe, but the Warehouse was lost. If this is time repeating itself, we need to hurry." Helena reached for the last chess piece in Myka's hand. "Now, please, get out of here while there's still time. You'll be one less person I have to worry about." Myka moved to hand her the game piece, but stopped short and pulled it back.
"You," she said in a slightly detached voice. The faraway look in her eyes revealed only that she was lost deep in thought.
"I'm sorry?" Helena's confused look matched her question.
"You keep saying 'you'. You said 'I created a force-field to protect 'you'; there was no other way to save 'you'; 'you were all safe'. Why didn't you say 'we', Helena? We were all safe." Myka searched Helena's face for a response. Despite Helena's attempt to mislead her, Myka picked up on a single word to root out the truth. Myka's deductive reasoning and observational habits rivaled her own. Helena looked away trying to think up a way to deflect Myka's train of thought, but it was too late. "Because it's not 'we', is it?" Myka asked. "We weren't all safe, were we? You didn't make it. You saved us, but you… you died?" Helena's averted gaze gave her the only response she needed. The idea that H.G. Wells would die in such circumstances incensed her. Just a day ago she argued with Pete that losing her meant losing one of the greatest minds in history. This was not her fight, and the only reason she had been dragged into it was because of Sykes. Killing her served no purpose, and righted no wrongs. To think she would die, while they all lived, made her grit her teeth. She refused to allow it. Helena was a civilian now, and this was a Warehouse task. If Helena was going to fight it, then she would fight the battle with her.
She swiftly maneuvered behind Helena and sat at the chair as she placed the last piece on the board. The shackle clamped around her neck and the pieces on the board evanesced before reappearing in their familiar starting order.
Helena thundered. "Myka! What are you doing? You said you'd go!" Myka glared at her defiantly. There was nothing either of them could do now but play the game. The portal would open and then there was nothing Helena could do about it.
"Maybe we can change the past and maybe we can't," she said. "But, if you're going in there, I'm going with you. I won't let you do this by yourself." She stopped Helena's next protest before it had the chance to be voiced. "We're doing this together, Helena. There's no time to argue, you said so yourself." Myka's voice was resolute and she turned her attention to the chess board where she played the pieces from memory, breaking the rules at the precise time. The overhanging axe-blade retracted noisily into its chamber and the clamp opened releasing her from its clutches. When the portal materialized she stood and headed toward the wall. She looked at Helena as she passed into the Warehouse and said over her shoulder, "You coming?" The other woman, still visibly upset, shook her head in frustration and followed her through to the other side.
"You're infuriatingly obdurate, do you know that?" Helena voiced her annoyance as they walked. She kept her head high as she walked, and Myka glanced at her thinking if a person could pout without visibly pouting that was the exact look Helena had on her face.
Myka laughed and gave her a mischievous grin. "Said the pot to the kettle?" Helena shot her a look, but the corners of her mouth turned up in a half-smile despite her agitation. She loved Myka's subtle reminder of their similar personalities, and she found herself unable to stay angry no matter how justified she felt it was. It was true, she mused. She herself had confounded multiple Warehouse personnel, and society itself, for her penchant to fly in the face of convention. She looked at Myka and smiled to herself. She was certainly the most alluring agent with whom she had ever worked. At the moment, however, she would have given anything to make her more amenable to reason. She sighed and muttered the word "women" under her breath. Luckily, Myka was too intent on listening to something else to have heard her.
Myka motioned for silence and walked softly toward a shelving unit. A voice could be heard on the other side. It belonged to Jane Lattimer. She pled with Walter Sykes for Pete's life – he was still under control of Cecil B. DeMille's riding crop and was holding himself at gunpoint. Helena looked at the scene in front of her and grimaced. It was playing out just like before.
Myka crept to an open space between the shelves and aimed her Tesla. She missed Sykes, but hit the riding crop, and Sykes dropped it as he ran. The discharge sent items flying from the shelves and a loud metal clank rang out from behind them. Helena, remembering the Mary Celeste's Rigging Rope jumped to the side and narrowly avoided being caught in it. She had to grab onto Myka to avoid falling, and stood flush against the taller agent by the time she regained her balance. They paused, green eyes staring into brown, not knowing if the electricity they felt in the air was left over from the Tesla's discharge or if it sprung from their proximity.
"Myka…" Helena's voice cracked. Standing like that with Myka made her head swim. She cleared her throat and looked away. Her gaze landed on the Rigging Rope, innocuously laying a few feet away. She blinked twice then realized the past had just been changed, albeit in a small way. The simple fact they avoided the Rope in its entirety told her all was not necessarily lost. It might actually be possible to affect change. Despite all reason her hope returned, and with it a newfound urgency. "Myka! We have to get to Sykes, he's gone to the portal. Hurry! I'll go around the other side!" Myka turned and made for the portal, and Helena stopped to consider the new possibilities. She looked at the abandoned wheelchair a few aisles away and walked toward it. Surely something existed that could give them a clear advantage.
Myka arrived in time to help Pete tackle Sykes just before he entered the portal to the Sanctum. She took his legs out from the right and Pete hit him high from the left. The combined force of their tackle sent Sykes to the ground, but not before Pete was thrown into the wall by the forward momentum. It knocked him unconscious momentarily and he was still coming to. It would take him another minute or two to orient himself. Both Myka and Sykes lay on the ground and Sykes, kicked savagely at her while he rose. He caught her on the left side of her head opening a nasty gash above her eyebrow. Thick dark blood flowed freely hindering her vision, but she managed to grab his other leg and trip him. He went down hard and they struggled on the cement floor. He managed a partial swing at her, and she felt a searing pain as his closed fist grazed the side of her face. More blood flowed. She wiped her face on her sleeve smearing the blood, but clearing her vision long enough to get her bearings. She responded with a devastating hit to his solar plexus and heard him exhale forcefully as he curled up and doubled over on his side. Myka, grimacing in pain, quickly crawled to subdue him. She called to Pete, but before he got to his feet everything stopped.
"Thank you, Ms. Bering, now kindly stand up and turn around. Slowly." Sykes' irritatingly condescending voice filled the air as he gasped for breath. She immediately backed up and did as commanded.
"Mykes, what are you doing?" Pete regained his feet but could not comprehend why Myka was playing along with the insane master mind. As she turned he made out why. He could see the point of the Tesla he had given his mother. Sykes held it held it steadily trained directly at Myka's head.
Artie and Helena met along the way to the portal. She filled him in, as best she could under the circumstances, on everything going on and how she had traveled back through time. They were squabbling over whether or not it was possible to change events when they reached the portal to the Sanctum. They came to an abrupt halt and took in the scene before them.
"Ah, Agents Nielsen and Wells, so good of you to join us," said Sykes. Myka's back was to him and she looked into Helena's face apologetically. Though she thought she would be of assistance in the attempt to stop Sykes, as it turned out she had been little more than a liability. She winced visibly when Sykes stepped up and grabbed her from behind. He tucked his arm under Myka's chin and held the Tesla to her head. Helena stopped breathing.
"No one move," Sykes ordered. "Except you, Agent Nielsen. Be a good man and cuff Agent Lattimer to the shelving, would you?"
"You got what you wanted, just go," Artie replied without moving.
"I said move!" Sykes responded and pressed the Tesla into Myka's temple. Artie quickly moved to Pete and handcuffed him to the metal shelving. Pete's eyes were ablaze.
"Sykes you son of a bitch, I will find you. I will find you no matter where you hide!" Pete pulled at the cuffs hoping to dislodge them; his frustration at being held captive amplified his anger.
"Temper, temper, Agent Lattimer," cooed Sykes. His silky voice might as well have been fingers down a chalkboard for the feelings it elicited in the group.
Helena's thinking clouded. All she could see was the love of her life, battered and bruised, held hostage by a psychopath. She recalled the time she, herself, spent as Sykes' hostage. She had helplessly watched as he ordered Agent Jinks' death without so much as a sliver of hesitation or remorse. To him the taking of a life was not something to avoid, but something to relish. She examined Myka from a distance taking in the evidence of Sykes' abusive nature. Blood ran from the wounds trickling down Myka's face and neck staining her shirt. Thick red drops, spatter from her injuries, were visible on the ground near their feet. Helena caught Myka's eye and they exchanged looks. When Sykes laughed and needlessly jerked her head to the side, for the sheer joy of causing Myka pain, Helena trained her attention on him.
A quiet fury rose within her.
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