Chapter 22 Loyalty

Max

July 21st, 2017

8:49 AM

Rome, Italy

Colosseum

Our cell phones were off and the three of us race out of the tower and back outside into the area through the fighting maze. The exit out of here was just across the arena and right on the tick before the tours began. If anyone's to discover the wreckage done inside the tower, ConDef can take the blame. We needed to get to Alex and Frank fast. If Alkaline's men have already discovered them, they're in for some deep shit already. I really hate to put Frank's life on the line with Alex against Rachel's will.

"Back there in the chamber," said Rachel. "Clotho said Chronos has the Time Shard. If you remember the last time we had a run-in with him, you know he can't be trusted."

"And it's going to be difficult for us to find the Space shard in Beirut in the middle of the warzones happening," said Bryan.

"If we're lucky," I said. "We can get help from Chrysalis to get us that Space Shard. But first things first. The Time Shard. Chronos is chance we're gonna have to risk. Come on, Alex and Frank are waiting. Let's hustle!"

"This petty crusade just doesn't get any saner," said Rachel.

After walking out through the main exit of the Colosseum and past the crowd in line for the tours, I spot the Ludus Magnus from afar and show my uncle and Rachel. It has to be where Frank and Alex last were and where ConDef had to have found them. I guide my companions over to where my cousin and Rachel's boyfriend's last known location is as I scope and point it out.

"Bryan, I think that's the Ludus Magnus," I said.

We could see a small explosion from a distance coming from the old battlegrounds. Meaning one of two things. Either ConDef is winning or Alex and Frank are. No one else seemed to have paid attention to the action. It was too far for anyone to take notice anyhow.

"Oh, that's definitely the Ludus Magnus," said Bryan. "Come on, this way."

The three of us run back into the markets and excuse the crowd up front. This was no time for crowds and hope ConDef hasn't killed Alex and Frank. Much less discovered where we are yet.

"How long do you think before Joanna gets here?" I asked my uncle.

Bryan chuckled.

"Let's not stick around to find out," he said.

"I'm with him on that," said Rachel.

Suddenly, something was shot in me in the middle of the crowd. The sting of something sharp pinch my skin like a syringe. I pull out whatever was stuck in my neck which was a feathered dart projectile. Matching the one Fernando was shot with. My heart begins to race. I've been dosed with a hallucinogenic drug.

"No," I said.

Already, I can feel something was not right with me. Rachel and Bryan stop walking and turn around to see what was wrong.

"Max?" Bryan wondered.

"Run," I said. "Run…"

Whatever the drug was doing to me, it was worse than the last couple of times I was drugged before. I can feel skin sweating and mind aching.

"Oh, shit," said Rachel.

Rachel noticed immediately what was wrong. The first sign of a hallucinating state as seen from Fernando.

"Alright," said Rachel. "Easy, Max."

"Stay away," I said backing away. "Stay away!"

I drop the dart on the ground and it confirmed what Rachel already knew. So that Bryan could know too as she picked it up from the ground where I dropped it to show him.

"What's wrong with her?" Bryan asked.

"They drugged her," answered Rachel.

"What?"

"Come on. We gotta get her out of here. C'mon, Max-"

"Don't touch me!" I snap. Shoving Rachel away. Whatever that was, the drug made me sensitive to being touched. Just like Fernando reacted to being less than tangible. I fumble to my knees and get back up. Losing my grip from being touched.

"We just – we just want to help," said Bryan.

"Get AWAY!" I barked. Fumbling again. "Get away from me!"

I am not myself. I feel like a feral dog needed to be put down. My head is shaking. My heart is pouncing. And my skin is heating. I run away from Rachel and Bryan and escape into the crowds in the markets.

"Max!" Rachel called.

"Max!" Bryan called.

As I'm running across the crowds, far away from my friend and uncle, I see a mist around the people in the markets. The walls between me and the ground below me moving around staring at crazy mirrors at an amusement park. I can see my arms and legs stretching too like those halls of mirrors Chloe and I used to walk through at the annual fair they had in Arcadia Bay. Except this was nothing like that.

"Get away from me," I mumble.

The stretchy visuals watching people, walls, and floors extend like rubber bands made things Ludacris for me to be running around in my hallucination. It didn't help but the hallucinating fog to make it harder for me to see where I was running. Now I know how fucked up it felt to be when Fernando was this way.

"Easy now," a voice echoed.

The nightmare I had during the storm was less of a rodeo than this. My visions of Chronos was less convoluted to walk through. I can no longer take. A single shot of this drug even after pulling it out immediately dosed me severely. Direct exposure to this drug was certainly like walking through a purgatory of crazy mirrors or watching a cheesy Goosebumps episode. I kept running and running like Forest Gump in the middle of an Italian market in Rome in my dosage of hallucination.

"Oh, god," I panted.

"Stay calm," the voice echoed again.

I almost recognize this voice. Familiar put high pitched in my ears.

"Come with me."

I knew this voice. It belonged to Alkaline. Did he dose me?

"Don't – don't touch me!" I cried.

"Max, Joanna's waiting."

"No, no, no, no!"

"It will all be over soon."

"No…no…"

"Relax. Trust me."

How can I hear Alkaline's voice when he wasn't next to me? Was this real? Or am I seeing things and he's actually walking me over to Joanna in reality.

"I'm sorry."

"Shhh."

"Bryan? Rachel?"

"Bryan's not here, Max. Neither is Rachel. You're on your own now."

"Bryan knows."

"Trust us. Follow me."

I don't know what's real anymore. This was a complete conundrum of a hallucinating crowd and Alkaline's voice in my ears. I wanted this out of my head. Now!

"No, I won't go."

"Don't resist."

"Where is this?"

"You're with us. Just listen to me. You know what we want."

"Don't…don't let them…don't let them…"

"I won't let them hurt you."

"Dammit. Please…"

"Where is it?"

"I don't know."

"Give them to us."

"I don't know. I don't know."

"Good."

"Dammit, I don't know! I don't know! Please! I don't KNOW!"

I had passed out during my hallucination. I was now waking up from dizziness. Sitting down at a table outdoors in the middle of an Italian café in Rome. My head felt like shit. My eyelids peeled open to my lap. I lift my head up. Feeling numb from my drugged state. As soon as my eyes were forward, staring in the face of the villainous Joanna Prescott herself. Holding the Eon Codex in her hands smiling.

"Welcome back," she said.

I jolted back in my seat. Startled by Joanna's presence. Sitting down with her in the middle of our adoring public. I turn my head right and see Alkaline sitting down at his table smiling. Holding the Reality Shard incased in glassware. I turn my head left and see two men in casual clothing sitting at their table next to Joanna and I's. Alkaline's lieutenants. Rachel and Bryan were gone, I was trapped here with Joanna and Alkaline, and now they had their hands on the codex and shard. This was turning out to be a really messed up day.

"I don't recommend making a scene," said Joanna. "You're not exactly here legally, remember?"

Joanna read Arthur's motto on the codex.

"No sacrifice, no victory," she read. "Beneath that innocent exterior, you're still the same scared, filthy little runaway. Aren't you?"

"Skip the mind games," I said. "You don't know me."

"In fact, I suspect I know you better than anyone, Ms. Caulfield. You've come a long way since Seattle. You've come a long way since Arcadia Bay. Have you now? But we won't dwell on that."

Joanna took her reading glasses and wore them to read a file on me she had on the table.

"Excepted into Blackwell Academy," she read. "Graduated class of 2014. Criminal record of attempted thievery, shooting of armed men serving Chrysalis, and the manslaughter of over 600 citizens of Arcadia Bay. Charges dropped from the evidence of scandal set by Sean Prescott. Records defunct."

Joanna laughed sinisterly. I stared down at the table seeing all the other files she had on me. A mugshot of me from Seattle after the Burke Heist and the other from Quantum Prospekt. Also, mugshots of Chloe Price from Arcadia Bay. And a picture of her walking down the streets of Rome. Which couldn't be possible. My eyes were lit with awe. What was she doing here? Has she found out what I've been on about?

"Oh," said Joanna. "Don't worry. She's of no interest to us. Unless, of course, we need to apply a little pressure."

"You leave her out of this!" I hissed.

"And we will. As long as you do what we want."

"What do you want from me?"

Joanna removed her glasses.

"Well," she begins. "As much as it kills me to admit it, I need your help. To find your friends Rachel Amber and Frank Bowers. As well as your uncle Bryan and your cousin Alex Caulfield."

"Right," I scoffed.

"We already know they have the coordinates to find the Mediterranean Islands."

"How do you know that?"

"You told us, Max. The drugs have an effect on memory. It seems your loyalty isn't as firm as you like to think it is. What about hers?"

"What? Wait, what are you trying to pull?"

"Nothing. It's just that – well, we've had you in our clutches for quite some time now. All those years after you cousin's false death. The dark room, the shooting, Triple 4, and not once did she mount a return. She didn't return to give you the adventure of a lifetime she dreamed to have with you, either. She just something she could exploit."

"I know what you're trying to do."

"Trust me. Alex is only ever in it for Alex. It's a cold hard fact. I discovered it five years ago. I'm surprised it's taken you this long to figure it out."

"Your wasting your time, Joan. You're sicker than your brother, nephew, Jefferson, and Crosby combined."

"Fair enough. My brother and nephew had their moments and had their differences. Ones neither of them could council peacefully. Mr. Jefferson and Crosby were both hypocritical imbeciles. Fools who thought their egos could solve their problems. But ask yourself, when Alex scooped you to steal that codex from that museum five years ago, did she give you the dream of a lifetime? Or did she just doom you to the life you're in now? Better yet, did you ask yourself the same question when you let a storm save the love of your life Chloe Price?"

This woman gives me the same look Jefferson and Crosby had given me when playing the good guy. And also, the look Jefferson gave me when strapped to a chair in the dark room and the look Crosby gave me when captured at the mill outpost. Years of learning the definition of a sheep in wolf's clothing and I knew she was trying to pull. Hard enough she questions Alex's loyalty and now she speaks of Chloe. Spitting in the face of my two closest affairs as every who's ever antagonized me has. This is the answer I give to Joan Prescott.

"You wanna know the answers to those questions?" I begin. "Here you go. I unleashed a storm your family created and sacrificed hundreds for Chloe. I slaughtered dozens in my school in defense of your brother's mutiny. And I laid down my life to save trillions more to be the heroine of Triple 4. Three things I've learned since. One, committing a tragedy to end another tragedy infuses conflicts than it does resolve them. Two, no matter what, you keep fighting to do what's right for the ones you love. Three, no matter how hard or how long the things we love the most keep drawing breath, there is always a cost to prolong it. My final answer, the same answer I gave to the two sack of shits you hired to kill me. Eat shit and die!"

Before Joanna could have a response, whether she'd be amused or threatened, she had to respond to Alkaline who walked over and whispered in her ear to inform her something that saved her the trouble of leveraging me against my companions and family. Which wasn't good, to put it mildly.

"Ah, excellent," said Joanna. "First off, I'm not so sure if your answer humors me or threatens me, but it matters less. Second off, what matters more is that we've located your friends, Uncle, and cousin on the other side of the city."

I look at Alkaline in the eye who gave me menacing smile before returning to his table. I turn back to Joanna for her final word.

"I'm sorry, Max," she apologized. "It seems you've been removed from the equation."

Alkaline lieutenants walk behind me and corner me. Touching my shoulders to keep me in captivity. It was would seem the men on Joanna and Alkaline's payroll have been hired to do away with me. Unless I can get out of this and take that shard from Alkaline or remain seated and accept my fate.

X/SQUARE/LM – STAY SEATED

B/CIRCLE/RM – GO AFTER ALKALINE

I shrug casually. That instantaneously throw the table down to the side. Taking the lieutenants off my skin and causing Joanna to startle off the table and drop the codex. I pick up the codex from where Joanna dropped and run as quick as I could after Alkaline. He sees me running after him and he starts running from me. Then a bunch of armed ConDef troopers emerges into the scene to start chasing after me and shoot. I needed the Reality Shard back from Alkaline and I was going to do it the hard.

I chase down Alkaline across an alley as more of his soldiers arrive to intervene. When in pursuit, Alkaline tumbles over a stack of cages with chickens inside to slow me down. I mantle over the cages to keep on him. I chase him back into the markets and down another café. He runs inside the restaurant and he slams a door in my face. Causing to fumble on someone's table while eating. I catch my grip and run inside after him.

I chase up the top floor, through a kitchen, and back outside where he climbs over a ladder and kicks it down to keep me from getting to his platform. I then had to chase after him on my platform until I found a way to climb up to his. When I do, Alkaline and I were now running and jumping off rooftops like Jackie Chan. When Alkaline found his way to climb down the rooftops, I try sliding down a pipe on the wall until it breaks and bends and I fall off landing on the roof of a car on my back. Alkaline was still on the run back on the lower ground I wasn't going to give him the slip with a back injury and the Reality Shard in his fingers. I shook off the pain when my feet start running on the street floors again and more ConDef troops arrive to stop me.

Alkaline runs back into the markets where I chase after him. Pushing through people to get at him while Alkaline's thugs shove everyone out of the way step out of the line of fire. I shake off the armed extremist as Alkaline runs across a street and car nearly bumps him over. The ConDef general himself mantles over the hood of the car as I watch him run inside a hotel. When running across the street, a van almost runs me over and I roll past it as it bumps into me. Then I run inside the hotel after Alkaline. I climb over the reception desk and onto a railing in pursuit of him. He had already reached the upper floors and climbing the railings would be the quickest way to him. Once I'm on the higher ground, I run up the stairs and I'm right behind Alkaline as he runs past me on the same floor. I've got him now.

I snare Alkaline by his waist and tackle him through a railing fence as he plummets onto a stack of boxes and I hang onto the crashed railing. Then I drop down and run back after Alkaline brushing off his obstruction. He now climbed up a wall to reach the high ground as more of his men came running in my path. Defuncting my way to chase him on the low ground. I make the obvious choice to climb the wall avoiding the soldiers and chasing Alkaline like Tom and Jerry on higher ground.

Playing cat and mouse with Alkaline was getting exhausting. The man himself had run faster than Chloe my heart was pumping calories from an exercise like this. Alkaline just a gate in front of me to keep me off pursuit. I took the scenic route swinging on a pipe and through a window into a men's bathroom. I may not have been the most athletic person on the planet to do this like Rachel is, but there wasn't much choice. I run out of the bathroom and catch Alkaline with my own eyes.

"Dammit!" Alkaline snarled.

"Surprise, asshole!" I gloated.

I chase the man across the hallway of the building and up another staircase. Alkaline shut a door behind me and let it hit me in the face. Causing me to fumble through another door where Alkaline reappeared again out of nowhere. His methods of obstruction were sloppy.

"Shit!" He growled.

Alkaline jumped off another railing to get across a chasm to another building. Hanging onto yet another railing as he almost made it. I too jumped across the chasm over the railing crashing through the window like Jason Bourne in the Bourne Ultimatum. I fall on the floor in the building feeling the pains of glass impact my skin. I hate crashing through glass like in the movies. Alkaline makes it off the railing and runs across the hall. That's when I get back up and continue the pursuit.

The two us run up a flight of stairs. Running up three floors until Alkaline finds an exit to flee through. When I take the exit he does, Alkaline is nowhere to be seen. No one but the public locals minding their own businesses in the streets of Rome. Not even ConDef soldiers to stop me. I've officially lost sight of Elias Alkaline.

"Where the hell did he go?" I said to myself.

Looking everywhere I can to find the war criminal himself, I run into a place in the markets where its crowded as a herd of sheep. Just what I need.

"Ah, great," I said.

I find Alkaline, I find the shard. I excuse as many people as I can to find the man. All chatting and speaking Italian as I do. Then I catch Alkaline in my sights between some people and go after him until a man impolitely shoves me to the side. Didn't even say excuse or sorry in neither English nor Italian. Then Alkaline vanished again. I'd be lucky if he found me first. I pardon and excuse everyone else around me until I find an opening to a railing where I see Alkaline walking casually but alertly on the other side.

"There he is," I said. "Think you've lost me, didn't ya?"

After walking out of the crowd, I was, unfortunately, going to have to jump across more chasms and rooftops. While jumping across a few, I fell through some would planks and hit the solid ground to where Alkaline discovers me again. He flees has he does and I continue the hot pursuit.

"Come on, Alkaline!" I shouted. "This is getting old!"

Chasing Alkaline on the rooftops, ConDef soldiers had spawned and now began to start open firing on their general's pursuer. I dodged the bullets and shielded the bullets with my time shield to avoid the led poisoning. And finally, ending the pursuit, Alkaline ziplined across on a wire with a clothes hanger down to a fountain patio rock bottom. I too ziplined on the wire with the hanger and dropped in. This is when my showdown with Alkaline begins.

The fight begins with Alkaline swing a stick of plywood over to me like a baseball bat and I instantly dodge his swing, catch his stick of wood tugging it from him, and swung the wood at him myself. Hitting him across the face snapping the wood in half. Leaving him with a graze on his forehead. The fight continues with me throwing my fist at him and then Alkaline jolting backward to dodge it. Then my opponent sweeps me by the leg, attempts to stomp me in the chest, and I roll away. Hitting his groin with my elbow and striking him with my fist across the nose. I stand on my feet to continue fighting.

I hit Alkaline across the face with every strike I had at him until he counters me by seizing me by the arm, twisting it behind my back, and shove me over to the fountain dunking my head in the water to drown the life out of me. I close my mouth and hold my breath for as long as I could. Struggling against Alkaline's grasp for dear life until I eventually take my head out of the water and hit my opponent in the rib with my elbow. Pushing him away as I catch my breath for air. Alkaline attempts to make a powerful strike with his fist until I dodge away, seize him by the hair, and slam his head on the rim of the fountain. Knocking him down on the floor but not out on the floor.

I make a fighting pose with my fist asking him if he wanted some more. Then he smiles and chuckles. Staring at someone getting the jump on me. I turn around to see one of Alkaline's lieutenants swing his own stick of wood at me. This time actually hitting me across the face as it broke in half and rendered me KO on the floor and down for the count. The fight was over.