Luther couldn't decide whether it was a good idea to hug Sloane. He remembered everything he had worked so hard to forget. He was back at square one, but was convincing himself, 'Worth it. So worth it.'
"This time travel shit is easier than you think. Where we are at now, is irrelevant to topside. Here it will be always stuck at the point in time that you first entered, and it will continue once you exit the same way out. Meaning, yes you did spend a day in my world, but it does not consider that in here." He ran out of air and gasped it back. "Using our lovely train, we are going back 72 hours from this point in time. To three days before. This is going to be your new future, which will take place in your past. Wherever you were three days before, you will essentially disappear from where you were to your new present." He slowly met each eye as it gathered around him and the board.
"We left our world to here, on August 7th, 2024, at like 2:00PM." Five interjected.
Doc hastily wrote it down and drew a line underneath it. "Where were you 72 hours ago?" They fell quiet. So much had been happening, happened, they struggled to remember.
"Oh, weren't we at Hargreeves with Abigail? Getting our memories about Ben's… mishaps?" Luther broke the silence. "Yeah, so that's me, Allison, Diego, Vik, Five, and Lila. That's six. Klaus, you?"
"I was in a séance, let's just say… communing with the dead… for the living. It's complicated, but I was like fully kidnapped on 41st street." Klaus roughly remembered his brief adventure as the strangest form of prostitution he's ever been part of. "Does that mean I won't be re-kidnapped when we go back?" When Doc slowly nodded his head at the strange question and tried hard not to ask for more details.
"Ben and Jennifer must have just been separated by Gene and Jean." Five muttered through his hand as it caressed his mouth. "Question is, how do we find them?"
"Before we left, I remember feeling their signature markers. Ever since we drank the Marigold, I started feeling similar energies. Doc's world was very chaotic to be honest. Everything was powered by it." Viktor told Five and he snapped his head, smiling.
"That's right! We can use it to guide us towards the Durango." Five clutched his satchel tighter. "Klaus, you won't be trapped in a grave anymore, so a definite plus. Oh, unless you don't want to join us in this fight." Five remember how his brother shook after entering the lab.
"No. I'm coming with." Klaus said it matter-of-factly, and Five didn't argue. He smiled and nodded. "I'm the only one that can capture her without touching her anyways." Klaus smiled back.
"72 hours will be right before we even enter the Hargreeves house—mansion? We would have been an hour from there" Viktor said, remembering the clock that read 3:07PM in the car as they exited to be greeted by security. Diego winced at the thought of his car, crashing in a tree, full speed, once they disappeared to their new location.
"We need new transportation. We can blip as far as we can, but I only feel safe going to a place I've already been to." Five said back at the group. He was sitting but shaking his legs, trying to undo a hard knot. "Gene and Jean would only go so far to move a body. Didn't you mention something about an Alpaca farm or something?" Five turned towards Luther.
"Llamas. They smelled like a Llama farm." Luther said back excitedly, and Lila nodded slightly in hesitant agreement.
"So, a Llama farm somewhere in upstate New York. That's like two hours, tops." Five said staring at a map of New York, but when he checked the key, it read 'New York State & Island. 2043.' And knew to ignore the state lines and new markers. "Didn't you also say that there was a rash on Ben, in the mansion? When did you see that?" Five turned around and shook his head. "You need to communicate better, Number One." His sarcasm emphasized and jabbed at him.
Luther scowled but still answered, "Yeah on our way there, I saw it like moving underneath his skin. He looked sicker than before."
"That's still Phase 1. Initial contact, but not enough for it to start merging." Doc said, and they nodded, and Five added "There's still time, it'll be before he disappears from his 'bathroom break.' Then that clears out transport. We will just go back to our van."
"We will disappear from the car though. How are we going to stop a moving van, with just Ben in it?" Allison asked, dumbfounded at this whole plan.
"I think we can set the exit from the subway as close to the approximate location where we would have been." Five muttered and got up to the board to roughly clean it with an old eraser. "An hour before we arrive here," pointing at the map and guided his hands to get the latitude and longitude. "What was the fastest you drove, Diego?" Five asked over his shoulder.
"Wanda only went 45 miles per hour after 'fixing' her." Diego grumbled.
"Okay, we calculate the starting point with the displacement, and our answer is roughly 42.25 North, 73.90 West. He circled it and wrote it down on his Dad's journal. It looks like it's the quiet part of town, so Luther, you think you can stop the car long enough for someone to get in it?" Five casually threw the question.
"I'm sorry, we're actually trying to stop a car going a full speed, with no one in it other than our essentially radioactive brother inside of it?" Allison still struggled with the plan.
"Allison. It's okay. I can do it. Just need to be fast about it." Luther said softly and optimistically. She huffed but remembered this was all so she could go back home to her kid. To Claire.
Doc continued to write on the board as they finalized each minor problems or possible events that could derail their original plan. They were interjecting as they remembered more and more, and details that could help. By the time they finished, they left the library with their bags still clutched to their sides and exited the Diner. They headed straight for the trains as they muttered 'thank you' to Server Five and other workers.
As soon as they entered the subway, Doc pushed on the emergency stop button that halted the train before it could continue moving. The doors hanged open as he roughly opened the car door to the driver's window. He unscrewed the dash and started pulling wires and cutting various colors. He dropped his bag and ran out of the train to pull off a smaller box that opened to various ports and switches. He turned one off, then gestured at Five to pass the 'carrot thingy. With the drive.' Five easily complied and handed it to him from the driver's window. He watched Doc plug it in and switch the button back on.
He quickly rushed back inside and connected the open and frayed wires with a port. He twisted them rapidly and pulled a small laptop that plugged in to the extended wires. The family was sat on each side, muttering excitedly as their plan finally rolled along. The laptop played the same noise as the old computers in the 90's and took its time loading.
"Yes! Finally!" He said as he entered the first coordinates that Five wrote on the journal. He pressed enter and typed his own world's coordinates. He typed in another set of numbers and Five guessed it was for each other subway stops through the different timelines.
"Okay everyone! Ready?" He shouted through the narrow door into the crowd. He pulled the nearby microphone, his voice full of excitement and wonder, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the brave and the fool, welcome to Time Travel Express! Please do keep your arms and legs attached close to your body, remain seated throughout your journey. Good luck!" It echoed through the train and Doc heard the family laugh. He closed the door and as the train rumbled to begin the journey, the lights flickered. He ran back to an open seat and hung onto a railing. The train became louder as it screeched and shouted puffs of steam out of the sides. "HOLD ON PEOPLE. THIS MAY BE ROUGH." Doc shouted through it all and saw everyone scrambling to grab something as the laughter quickly dissipated from their faces.
Five stared at Lila and wished he could get up to sit next to her. In his haste, he sat next to Doc at a nearby seat next to the driver's window. He shot her a look and she nodded as they braced through the shaking train. Lights of blue and green shot through all their windows and it painted an abstract painting on her face. Her eyes changed colors every time she blinked and saw her hands gripped tight against the metal railing.
It went quiet and let out a screeching hiss. It creaked underneath and they could feel the heat through the soles of their shoes. It was their old station. Five immediately knew from the burnt-out campfire and the trash can he had kicked over. It was still dingy and dark. Doc stumbled back to the laptop and opened the subway doors. He dramatically turned, did a wave and a bow, to say, "That's how it's done."
"Thank you, Doc. For helping." Five ignored the grandeur and said it like a final goodbye. He lifted his hand to shake it, but Doc pulled him into a hug. It was brief, but they're hands were still clutched as they let go.
"'Till next time." Doc smiled and looked down at Five.
"Doc. Remember, if it's anyone. It's you, yeah?" Lila said as she pulled him for a hug.
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm working on it." He laughed in her ear, and he wished his Lila was next to him. She would have been such a great leader.
They all muttered their thanks and goodbyes and slowly exited the train. They kept looking back as they watched it close shut and the normal rumbling to start, as it took off rapidly down the tracks. Doc was going home, to save his apocalypse.
They turned to face the entrance to their topside. They heard cars whizzing past and far-away honking as they approached. It was winter, with dead trees and leaves that mixed with the snow. They saw their car slowing down as it sped down the street. As if in slow motion, Five grabbed Luther's arm and blipped him a few feet in front of the car. He quickly pushed himself out of the way for Luther to do his thing.
Luther was more surprised at the change of scenery than he did at the car hurling towards them. He let it hit him and ground his foot into the ground to slow it down. With nothing holding down the gas, Five easily blipped inside and had to reach to press the breaks. It squeaked to a stop. Five saw Lila and her family running towards them, as Ben shouted.
"WHAT THE FUCK? YOU… WERE JUST HERE? WHERE DID EVERYONE GO?" He was whipping his head around at the empty van. Luther shaded the view in front of him but his eyes followed Luther as he opened the door to sit behind him. He grabbed both of Ben's arms and tucked it behind the seat so it would be immobilized. Ben groaned at his rash as it was roughly held underneath Luther's thick hands. The rest of his family were catching their breath as they filed in. Viktor was the first to enter and slid in next to him.
"Ben. Listen. We're literally coming from the future. You need to trust us. This is going to hurt. Maybe." Viktor said as he placed his thumb on either side of his temple. The rest of his hand wrapped around his head, and he tried to fight them.
"No! What are you doing! Let me go, Luther! I have to find Jennifer!" He grunted as he roughly tried to shake Luther's hand. He kept shaking his head so Viktor couldn't grab it.
"Ben, please. Hold still." Viktor pleaded. Allison seated in the passenger seat, drew her powers up and felt her eyes change. She quietly muttered, "Comply," as he when limp and let Viktor place his hands on his head. Viktor felt every second slip by and drew his power to suck every piece of the Marigold out of Ben. He felt them connect, the surge of his powers entering through his fingertips. He could feel every blood vessel and veins in Ben's body, and manically searched his system for more Marigold. He felt Ben's arm stinging with the contact, fighting Viktor as it screamed for the Durango. He removed it all and when he opened his eyes, Ben went limp and softly breathed.
They all sighed in relief when the yellow lights surrounding Viktor ended. They saw his eyes madly swivel inside his lids as he breathed heavily searching. Klaus placed two fingers on his limp neck and said, "Pulse. He's fine," to let him be. Viktor looked drained and wished he packed more water.
"Let's head to Jennifer now." Five continued with their plans, not showing how it frightened him as he watched Ben slowly lose his powers. He went to turn the engine, but Diego said, "What do you think you're doing?" As he gestured Five to get out. Five groaned as he kicked open the door and shouted, pulling at his hair, at the empty road, "HOW are we still on this?"
Diego struggled twice to start the engine. It roared to life on the third and they did a quick U-turn to head towards a rest stop. The sign led them their way and soon, they were gulping water from a water fountain and hot dogs filled their stomachs. There was a vendor outside with a small cart, too small for his massive size. Once Diego had gathered crumbled dollars and coins from everyone's pocket, he flattened it out and said, "How many can this get me?" The man took every cent, but still gave each of them a hot dog.
Five grabbed a large map of Upstate New York and was glad to read 2024 on the bottom of it. He laid it on the empty reception desk and located where they were. He pulled out the compass and set it flat on the desk. Viktor quickly looked around to see no one and placed a finger on the compass. The magnetic field sensing a different north, swiveled madly around until it settled. The red tip pointed Northwest and when Viktor let go, it turned back to its true north.
"Northwest from here… There's an 'G Alpaca and Llama Sanctuary.' Maybe that's it. Gene and Jean?" Viktor followed the Northwest line until it hit the big green opening that split the roads around it. Viktor opened the door and faced the northwest and turned on the tap. He felt the energy pulsating miles away and knew she felt scared.
They shuffled back to the car, with Ben still knocked out and face pressed against the window. It had created a mist on the window with every exhale. Klaus couldn't help but draw small dicks and giggled while showing Allison. They roared off with Diego still driving, but Viktor in the passenger. He was holding the compass with the map making sure they were navigating through the right path.
They passed by cows, horses and an incredible number of republican signs and flags. They continued, ignoring their grumbling stomachs and their need to stretch their legs. It had been hours since they hit the road, when Ben was rustling awake. He saw the distant chatter between Five and Lila as the middle of the van slept peacefully. He heard Luther softly snoring in the trunk and Diego and Viktor discussing where to turn next.
"Where are we?" Ben clutched his cold cheek and glanced at the imprint of his face on the window. He glared at the crude cave wall drawings next to his face.
"Well, good morning sunshine." Five said back to Ben and showed him a dimple. Ben saw how he held Lila's hand and ached to be with Jennifer. He felt different. Clear-headed, drained, and like he'd left behind something important.
"You, did it? Didn't you? Did you take my powers?" Ben started to raise his voice.
"Sorry Benny-boy. You understand. The apocalypse. The end of the world! We got half of it down now." Five smirked at him. "We are going to Jennifer now." Relief washed over Ben as he finally knew he was inching towards her. He knew they were all going to save her without the homicidal rage that came along with their chemical reaction. He blinked. He tried to focus on his powers to draw something, anything out, but nothing followed. He still felt his energy drained and wished he could lay down.
Ben got to hear about their alternate timeline, Doc, Grace, and Sloane as they slowly approached further into the rural darkness. There was truly nothing that was visible as they looked out the window. Ben sobered up his sleep when he tried to understand the tunnels, the lab, and the Diner. He kept stopping Five and Lila to ask, "Where was this again?" and "Who is that?" He tried to keep up but his brain lagged behind like the time he suffered a concussion on a mission. They slowed to a stop and the family rustled awake. They filed out as they tried to gather their focus to fight again. Viktor and Diego, first one out, flared out the map and clicked on the flashlight to see the compass spinning wildly unable to contain the energy. Klaus jumped around in jumping jacks, pumping his blood out to his arms and legs. Allison cracked her back and craned her neck.
When Viktor set down the map and stilled as he brought his power up and saw the yellow glint against the bruised van. It warped the light, but he focused on Jennifer. The Durango, the pulsing of it, the texture, and the smell of the energy was clearly coming from a far away barn. A mile next to it was a small farmhouse with its warm lights on and the small stream of smoke puffing out the chimney.
"Gene and Jean must be in that house, but I feel Jennifer in there," Viktor said as he pointed to the barn.
"You heard him, people." Five said as he ruffled out his jacket. He put his satchel back on, and for the thousandth time he opened it to check on the vaccine. He squeezed Lila's hands and couldn't help but kiss her cheek, even though Diego could see them. He said to the group, "Hey, Doc told me about this thing, they do it when they go on big missions." He pulled out his Dad's journal and ripped out eight pieces of paper. "He said, when they go out and don't know if they're coming back, they write goodbye letters. To one person, that needs to know you loved them as they died." Five whispered the last bit. Lila stared at him, and didn't fully consider the weight of this mission until now. They could… die. He could die.
Diego wanted to protest and said, "That's so stupid," but he walked back into the car and opened the trunk to pull out a broken purple crayon, a normal ball point pen, a sharpie, and various broken no.2 pencils to present it to them in his hands. Klaus, obviously, went for the broken crayon, and the rest scattered it amongst them.
Five sat on the passenger side and wrote it on the dashboard. Lila wrote it on the hood while taking her time to look at Five. Diego wrote his, standing with the paper pressed against the window, but quickly took the time to shave his broken end of the pencil with his knife. Luther had started writing on the trunk door. The other side of the van had broken windows, so Klaus, Allison, Viktor and Ben, decided to line up and write on each other's back. Klaus, the first in line, chose a random hardcover book he'd found in the car as a solid surface. They madly scribbled in silence and after exactly one minute Five said, "Let's go." He hopped out of the van and slammed it shut. "Let's go finish this shit." He watched nearby birds fly away startled when he shut the door, and finished saying, "Let's go home."
Lila reached for Five's hand and grabbed Ben's as he hesitantly joined the forming circle. Five looked out and focused on landing on the back of the barn, far away from the house. A quick flash of blue, and they landed, and loud crack sounded when Luther stepped back on a branch. They all stilled and listened if anyone heard it. At first they thought, they got away with it, but Allison heard a small footstep approaching from the side of the barn and quickly pressed herself against the wall. She saw the gun come first as the security peeked. She pushed the gun against his arm and felt it slip out of his hands. She quickly grabbed it to throw it in the dark woods and reached for his mouth to silence him. She looked him dead in the eye and saw her own yellow glow reflect in his dilated pupils.
"I heard a rumor… you heard from your boss; it was okay to go home." Alllison quietly whispered. He dropped his fighting, and his eyes cleared to white but quickly dissipated as he robotically turned and told the nearby person, "Let's go home. Boss said it was okay."
They heard them gather their weapons and leave as a group together. The family stood and watched until they were dots far away.
Luther broke open the lock on the door and tried to quietly push it open. It creaked but there was nobody to notice. The barn was dark and smelled heavily of hay and dust. They could hear the small shaking breath of Jennifer in a far away corner. She stood up when she saw Ben and rushed towards him.
"You came. You came back for me." Ben tried to hug her, but Luther still held him back. He struggled to say, "You took it out of me! What's the problem?"
Jennifer stopped to see the rest of the family push in the barn and surround her. She kept moving her head towards the giant figure in the middle of the barn. She started to back away as she saw Ben struggle against Luther.
"We're going to help, okay? We found a vaccine. We found it to stop everything. To stop the pain, the terrible lies, everything." Ben shouted past Luther and watched her nod as she stared at Ben. Like a bubbling lava, she felt her anger bubble and pop as it filled her head, she felt the sluggish viscosity of the hot rage, and she smelled the soot and ash that would cover the world when she'd explode. She was inevitable. Like a fixed point in time and space, no one could stop this even if they tried. For her, it had been hours since she was stuck in the barn. Every moment, she felt the reaction grow and change her, mutating her mind.
She felt her arm sting as it electrified her. She wanted Ben, but she couldn't feel him like before. It felt as if her other half died and felt the strange emptiness as the Durango tried to look for something that no longer existed. She screamed as her head filled with strange voices. They whispered malice in her ear and left a bitter taste in her mouth. She saw red but faded to black.
She rolled her eyes to the back of her head as she rose on from her seat. She levitated and went limp as an invisible force pushed her up towards the ceiling. Five stumbled back and remembered his dream of the growing statue of Ben. He clutched on the syringe tight in his hands and knew this wasn't a dream.
Klaus stepped in and drew his powers. Like always, it tasted like moldy cheese, and he felt the weight fight against his arms. He remembered his old army and the sheer amount of them when he first stumbled across the camp. He allowed his mind to remember Dave and let it fill the room. Out the smoke, an army full of the dead grabbed onto her arms and legs, holding her down on the floor. Viktor joined as he pushed her torso down and focused hard to not crush her through the floor. Klaus' blue lights mixed with Viktor's yellow was so bright that the family had to tilt their eyes away. Five took the opportunity to plunge the syringe, through the cold ghostly bodies, and into her thigh to slowly push the vaccine. He pulled it out as she stilled, and her eyes stopped shaking along with her body.
Lila approached Five to help him off the hay and picked a strand of it from his hair. "You okay, love?" She asked carefully. She saw that he was shaken, but no bodily harm had been done. They saw Klaus retract his small army and Viktor's eyes slowly fade back to normal. They saw Jennifer slumped on the floor as she took shallow breaths. Luther finally let go of Ben and he jumped towards her. He put her head on his lap and tried to bring her closer. He saw the streaks of tears that evaporated off her face, leaving white streaks. He hissed when he touched her hair and felt the heat radiating off her in the winter chill. He didn't care and continued to softly shake her shoulder, trying to wake her. She shook her head and shuttered open her eyes.
"How do you feel?" Ben cautiously asked as she struggled to sit up right.
"Empty." She said through chapped lips.
"Me too." Ben said back and he held his hand in hers.
"Feels like I fell a couple stories. My head is killing me." She groaned. "But I feel lighter. Before I felt like I could explode at any moment." She still stared at the large figure behind them.
Ben followed her gaze out to see it clearly. Luther opened the barn door further to shine the moonlight on it and heard a gasp from Allison.
"Is that…" She started but didn't know how to finish it.
"It's a squid." Diego said, equally shocked, "A giant. Squid."
"This was from the Jennifer incident." Lila said. Remembering the file that she shared between Five and Diego.
"I don't know how, or what happened." Jennifer looked at the large demon and tried to blink back some memories. There was nothing. Anything before that awful thing was black and missing. There was nothing to pull, no strings to follow. It felt like she began and ended with the dangling monster.
"Jean! Look we have guests!" Gene said, startling all of them, with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands, as they entered through the open barn doors.
"Oh Gene. Aren't they cute. They think they can save her!" Jean sweetly told Gene.
"A little too late for that." Five said. Viktor was quick and used his powers to grab and twist the shotgun off into the air and threw it through the barn roof. Gene raised his hands in shock, but didn't back away. He whistled, but no army followed.
"Had to send your goons off. Oops. My bad." Allison smiled as she focused on immobilizing Jean. She grunted as shouted for her partner, as Allison bound her legs and arms together until she fell in front of him. Gene was in shock and whipped his head around, still waiting for his back up to arrive. He considered gunning it, leaving his wife behind. He instead reached for a small caliber gun in his belt buckle and shot at Allison, but Luther easily blocked it with his arm. He threw the empty gun at Luther, but Diego managed to boomerang it away from him and let it circle back to smack it onto Gene's face. He groaned as he clutched his bleeding nose bridge.
He shook his head and saw his glasses were cracked. He heard, "Gene! Do something! Don't just stand there!" as a desperate Jean struggled to get out of Allison's powers. When Diego saw Gene make his mind to run, he saw him turn around and flailing his arms around him to run away. He easily slid his alien knife and threw it against the door and watched him fling back, his sleeve stuck on the door with a sharp blade holding him in place. He dangled for a second but found his footing. He tried to shimmy out of his jacket, but only cut his arm trying to do so.
Jennifer rose, watching them struggle on the floor and wall. She couldn't hold it back as she said, "You know, I didn't ask to be born. I just appeared in this world, inside a squid, barely kept alive for this long. Nothing about this makes sense. And my favorite part, is the fact that you two would have rather killed this world, to be… what was it… a Harvard professor and a MacFucker Fellow? You couldn't think of another way to build another life, a new one, so you decided to end the world?" She said in exasperation. "I just don't understand, how you got there." She finished yelling in each of their faces.
The family watched in silence as they watched Jennifer explode. "Who cares, if we're in a different timeline? The only difference is that you know. You know what you could have been and decided that's the way it SHOULD HAVE BEEN. You twisted the world to fit your view." She was crying, spitting over them as her voice broke from the pressure. She was truly drained now, adrenaline leaving her system and could only whisper through her tears, "I didn't ask to be born." She slowly slid down and lost consciousness. Ben managed to grab her head before it hit the floor.
Allison was the first to break the silence as she said, "I heard a rumor… you fell into a deep coma and in it, you only saw the world you could have had, but can never reach it."